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Pressure Drop in Paked Bed
Pressure Drop in Paked Bed
Pressure Drop in Paked Bed
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PRESSURE DROP THROUGH A PACKED BED
SUMMARY
As fluid flows through a packed bed it experiences a pressure loss due to
friction. This article describes the use of the Carman-Kozeny and Ergun
equations for the calculation of pressure drop through a randomly packed bed
of spheres.
DEFINITIONS
f
: Bed voidage
INTRODUCTION
As a fluid passes through a packed bed it experiences pressure loss due to
factors such as friction. The relationships required to predict the pressure
drop for a fluid flowing through a packed bed have been known for some
time, with Darcy observing in 1896 that the laminar flow of water through a
bed of sand was governed by the following relationship:
PHU
This relationship was initially analysed in terms of the Hagen-Poiseuille
equation for laminar flow through a tube and was later formulated as the
Carman-Kozeny equation for pressure drop for laminar flow through a
packed bed in 1937. The following sections present the Carman-Kozeny
equation and subsequently Ergun's general equation for the pressure drop
through a randomly packed bed of spheres.
HP=180x23U(1)2
HP=1.75x3fU2(1)
HP=150x23U(1)2+1.75x3fU2(1)
The Ergun equation combines both the laminar and turbulent components of
the pressure loss across a packed bed. In laminar flow conditions the first
component of the equation dominates with the Ergun equation essentially
reducing to the Carman-Koreny equation presented in Section 3, although
with a slight variation in the constants used due to variations in the
experimental data with which the correlations was developed. In the laminar
region the pressure drop through the packed bed is independent of fluid
density and has a linear relationship with superficial velocity.
Under turbulent flow conditions the second component of the Ergun equation
dominates. Here the pressure drop increases with the square of the superficial
velocity and has a linear dependence on the density of the fluid passing
through the bed.
f=Re150+1.75
The Ergun equation may then be calculated using the packed bed friction
factor as expressed below:
HP=fx3fU2(1)
diameter of a sphere having the same surface area to volume ratio as the nonspherical particle). Here the Ergun equation becomes :
HP=150xSV23U(1)2+1.75xSV3fU2(1)
Alternatively if the particles in the packed bed are not mono-sized the
surface-volume mean diameter xSV, should be used in place of the
spherical equivalent particle diameter xSV.
Article Created: July 23, 2013
ARTICLE TAGS
Laminar Flow
Packed Bed
Reynolds Number
Turbulent Flow