Investigation into gas-solid flow in an airlift loop reactor with cluster-structure-dependent drag model

The hydrodynamics characteristics and heterogeneous structures in an airlift loop reactor(ALR) are analyzed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Based on the two-fluid model, a modified cluster-structure-dependent (CSD) drag model with consideration of the effects of cluster is employed and applied to the prediction of the non-uniform flow structure in the airlift loop reactor. In comparison with experimental data and traditional drag model, the present model gives a better prediction. The distributions of local granular temperature in different regions of ALR are shown. The results reveal that the granular temperature in the particle diffluence region is higher than those in the draft tube and annular zones.