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Pressure Drop in Concurrent Gas–Liquid Upflow Through Packed Beds

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Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Fluid, Thermal and Energy Systems (ICFTES 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering ((LNME))

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Abstract

Separate correlations were proposed to predict a two-phase frictional pressure drop for the three identified flow regimes, namely bubble flow, pulse flow, and spray flow for the concurrent gas–liquid upflow through the packed bed from the large experimental data. In this work, the gas–liquid systems studied are air–water, air-56% glycerol, and air-monoethanolamin; the column packing investigated are Raschig rings, Intalox saddles, and ceramic spheres of two sizes. Liquid flow rates were varied from 3.53 to 43.92 kg/(m2s) and air flow rates from 0.265 to 1.768 kg/(m2s). It is noted that pressure drop increases with an increase in gas and liquid flow rates, which is consistent with literature findings. It is observed that pressure drop is higher for the system with high liquid viscosity, and it is also observed that pressure drop is influenced by the combined effect of packing particle size, shape, and porosity of the beds. These correlations predicted the pressure drop of the current experimental data (1150 data points) and literature data (770 data points) with an RMS deviation of 12.8%.

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Abbreviations

dc:

Column diameter [m]

de:

Equivalent particle diameter (2/3)(ϕ dp) (ε/1-ε) [m]

dp:

Particle diameter [m]

f:

Two-phase friction factor –

g:

Acceleration due to gravity [m/s2]

G:

Gas flow rate [kg/(m2 s)]

h:

Distance between the pressure tapping [m]

L:

Liquid flow rate [kg/(m2 s)]

MO:

Morton number (gμl4/ρlσl3) –

n:

Number of observations

ΔP:

Two-phase pressure drop [N/m2]

Re:

Reynolds number –

Rms:

Root mean square deviation –

u:

Velocity [m/s]

ε:

Bed porosity –

\(\phi \):

Sphericity –

μ:

Viscosity [kg/(m.s)]

ρ:

Density [kg/m3]

ρB:

Bulk density [kg/m3]

σ:

Surface tension [N/m]

A-W:

Air-water

A-G:

Air-56% Glycerol

BF:

Bubble flow

CS:

Ceramics spheres

Exp:

Experimental

FR:

Flow regime

G-L:

Gas-liquid

Id:

Internal diameter

IS:

Intalox saddles

MEA:

Monoethanolamine

PF:

Pulse flow

Pre:

Predicted

RR:

Raschig Rings

SF:

Spray flow

Sph:

Ceramics spheres

B:

Bulk

f:

Frictional

g:

Gas

l:

Liquid

t:

Total

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, B V Raju Institute of Technology, Narsapur, 502313, India

    A. V. Raghavendra Rao, Bhaskar Bethi & G. Bhanu Radhika

  2. INM Technologies Private Limited, Bangalore, 560074, India

    R. Kishore Kumar

Authors
  1. A. V. Raghavendra Rao
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  2. Bhaskar Bethi
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  3. G. Bhanu Radhika
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  4. R. Kishore Kumar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. V. Raghavendra Rao .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut, Calicut, Kerala, India

    Sudev Das

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Narasimha Mangadoddy

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa

    Jaap Hoffmann

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Rao, A.V.R., Bethi, B., Radhika, G.B., Kumar, R.K. (2024). Pressure Drop in Concurrent Gas–Liquid Upflow Through Packed Beds. In: Das, S., Mangadoddy, N., Hoffmann, J. (eds) Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Fluid, Thermal and Energy Systems . ICFTES 2022. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5990-7_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5990-7_39

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-99-5990-7

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