Effect of bed size on the gas–solid flow characterized by pressure fluctuations in bubbling fluidized beds

Abstract Pressure fluctuations in four bubbling fluidized beds having different bed sizes (three square cross-sections of 5, 10, and 15 cm in side length, and one rectangular cross-section of 2 × 10 cm2) were measured at four axial positions (P1, P2, P3, and P4). Several characteristic indicators of the flow specifically of the pressure were calculated. In terms of these characteristic indicators, the effect of bed size on flow behavior was investigated. The results show that in the fully fluidized state, the pressure drop is slightly higher in smaller beds, but the pressure drops in the 10- and 15-cm beds are close. The 15-cm bed has the lowest pressure-fluctuation amplitude. The amplitudes at P1 and P2 in the lower part of the bed are very close for bed sizes below 10 cm, but the amplitude at P3 near the bed surface increases with decreasing bed size. No general trend was observed regarding the effect of bed size on skewness and kurtosis of the pressure for all four axial heights. For the average, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of the pressure at P4, the values are close for the two small beds (2 × 10 and 5 × 5 cm2) and the two large beds (10 × 10 and 15 × 15 cm2), and hence the effect of bed size separates the beds into two groups. In the fully fluidized state, for P1, P2, and P3, the Kolmogorov entropy and the dominant frequency both increase with increasing bed size, but in the pseudo-2D bed both are between the values for the 5- and 10-cm beds.