Assessment of heat transfer performance in a swirling fluidized bed with binary mixture

Abstract A swirling fluidized bed reactor has its potential in the enhancement of gas–solid mixing behaviors and heat transfer performance via the introduction of lateral momentum. A deep insight into heat transfer mechanism and enhancing effects in a swirling fluidized bed is essential for the reactor optimization and process regulation. In this work, the heat transfer performance of a swirling fluidized bed is investigated by means of a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The solid holdup and temperature fields are predicted. The bed-to-wall heat transfer and gas–solid interphase heat transfer are revealed. The results demonstrate that the increase of operating velocity is beneficial to mixing behaviors of binary mixture and enhancement of heat transfer performance. Meanwhile, the impact of swirling angle is also analyzed. When the inclination blade angle is changed from 45° to 12°, the bed to wall heat transfer coefficient can be improved by about 20%.