Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Advanced Powder Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apt

Original Research Paper

Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed

Mohsen Isaac Nimvari a, Reza Zarghami b,⇑, Davood Rashtchian a
a
Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
b
Multiphase Systems Research Lab., School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11155-4563, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this work, to investigate the source of pressure fluctuations, behavior of a single bubble in a two-
Received 14 January 2019 dimensional gas–solid fluidized bed was studied. Pressure sensors located at different heights of the
Received in revised form 21 October 2019 bed measured presure fluctuations, and simultaneously a high speed camera was used to pursue all steps
Accepted 24 April 2020
from formation to eruption of bubbles. Two types of particles were applied with different sizes and den-
Available online xxxx
sities. Experiments showed that the maximum amplitude of formation was independent of the bubble
diameter. But, it depended on density of particles, velocity of injection and the distance from bed surface.
Keywords:
When injection stopped, there was a minimum in pressure profile related to the higher dense phase voi-
Gas-solid fluidised bed
Single bubble
dage for a higher superficial gas velocity after injection. Also, the maximum pressure fluctuation of bub-
Pressure fluctuations ble eruptions was related to the bubble diameter, density and size of particles. It was concluded that
Voidage pressure fluctuations of formation, passing and eruption of bubbles in fluidized beds are originated
due to changes in dense phase voidage, bed voidage and movement of particles during bubble eruption.
Ó 2020 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder
Technology Japan. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Due to their good performance in heat and mass transfer, gas–
solid fluidized beds are widely used in various industries, such as
catalyst cracking and pharmaceutical processes [1,16,9,8]. Their
complicated behaviours have motivated researches to study their
characteristics, many of them are reflected by presence of bubbles.
Retention time of particles and fluid, heat and mass transfer and
conversion are affected by bubble characteristics, such as shape,
size and velocity [9,12,27].
Pressure fluctuations are usually used to investigate the dynam-
ics of fluidized beds [14,29,31]. Scholars studied the sources of
pressure fluctuations and concluded that they originate from
motion of particles[30,25], change in the gas flow rate in the ple-
num [33,7,26], formation of bubbles and their eruption at bed sur-
face [20,4,28], motion of bubbles [6,15]and coalescence and
splitting of bubbles [10]. In order to understand the origin of pres-
sure fluctuations, movement of a single bubble, injected from an
orifice into the bed, has been considered as an appropriate choice
[32,4,28,19]. Winter [32] studied changes in density and pressure
fluctuations in a fluidized bed. Results showed that a higher gas
velocity causes a greater intensity in pressure fluctuations. It was
proposed that bubbles produced a pressure wave dampened while
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: rzarghami@ut.ac.ir (R. Zarghami).
rising in the bed. Also, local density maxima for single bubble
injections coincided pressure maxima. Musmarra et al. [19] used
Geldart [11] group B particles to study the propagation character-
istics of pressure fluctuations in a fluidized bed. They measured
velocity and amplitude of pressure waves and compared them
with results of pseudo homogeneous and separated phase flow
models. The measured velocities were in good agreement with
those predicted by pseudo homogeneous model, but there was 2
order of magnitude difference with the model of separated phase
flow. They concluded that dynamic waves can be taken as elastic
waves transmitted by particle elastic interactions. Musmarra
et al. [20] investigated the effect of size and density of particles
on the propagation velocity of pressure fluctuations. They showed
that size and density of particles influence the propagation velocity
indirectly by changing the bed voidage.
Bi et al. [4] showed that when the distance of probe position
from bubble injection point increases, the amplitude of pressure
pulse decreases. Therefore, they suggested that the pressure waves
of bubble injection propagate upward. On the other hand, there
was a time delay between the first peaks of pressure profiles from
two pressure sensors located in different heights of the bed, and
they concluded some waves propagate downward. It was con-
cluded that attenuation of pressure waves defined as longitudinal
decay factor is not due to drag force or friction. That decay factor
decreases with increase of superficial gas velocity because particles
in the bed can move more easily.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2020.04.031
0921-8831/Ó 2020 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
Powder Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2020.04.031
2 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx
A gas–solid fluidized bed includes two types of pressure waves:
dynamic waves which travel fast and kinematic waves which tra-
vel slowly [28,24,18]. The dynamic pressure wave are upward
and downward fast waves. The upward fast waves arise from for-
mation and coalescence, whereas the downward fast waves are
related to bubble eruption. The local phenomena, such as rising
of gas bubble and motion of agglomerates and clusters, attribute
to the kinematic waves. It was found that the amplitude of upward
pressure waves decreases linearly with the distance from the point
of origin. In contrast, the amplitude of downward pressure waves
remains almost constant throughout the bed [28]. van der Schaaf
et al. [28] suggested that pressure fluctuations primarily originate
from bottom of the bed. They measured the bed pressure response
to a gas pulse at different heights of the bed and suggested three
phases for the response: bubble formation, passage of gas bubble
and bubble eruption. They concluded that compression waves can-
not be explained by a damping mechanism as suggested by [4] and
[18], and pressure waves are generally originated from variation in
gas or particles velocities and bed voidage. Bi and Chen [2] mea-
sured pressure fluctuations in a fluidized bed and showed that
the maximum amplitude increases by increasing the height of
the bed and pressure fluctuations are insensitive to the axial loca-
tion. Column diameter also had no significant effect on the maxi-
mum of pressure fluctuations.
Bi [3] did a good litlature review on pressure fluctuations. It was
concluded that bed oscillations, bubble motions and pressure
waves propagated are the causes for local pressure fluctuations,
and suggested studies should be dedicated on predicting local
and global pressure fluctuations. Müller et al. [17] used ultra-fast
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pressure sensor to investi-
gate eruption and formation of bubbles. The frequency of pressure
fluctuations, measured at the distributor, was close to the fre-
quency of bubble eruption at the surface of bed, rather than the
frequency of bubble formation at the distributor. They showed that
the main origin of pressure fluctuations propagated downwards is
passage and eruption of bubbles. Boyce et al. [5] examined the ori-
gin of pressure fluctuations in a slugging fluidized bed with Geldart
[11] group D particles by discrete element method-computational
fluid dynamics (DEM-CFD) approach. Calculated results were com-
pared with experimental data of Müller et al. [17]. Their simula-
tions showed that the drag force conveyed on the fluid by
particles is the main cause for pressure fluctuations throughout
the bed. They suggested that pressure fluctuations do not originate
Controller
Compressor Injection gas
NO Valve
NC Valve
Air Regulator
Fluidization gas
Mass flow controller (MFC)
Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup.
Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
Powder Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2020.04.031
from a pressure pulse created by the bubble eruption, and then
propagation of them downward, as concluded by Müller et al. [17].
Although the study of single bubble behaviour in fluidized beds
has already been done by mentioned research works, the related
dynamics phenomena have not been properly analysed. The pur-
pose of this work was to identify the source of pressure fluctua-
tions for a single bubble in a fluidized bed. In a 2D fluidized bed,
using different particles, pressure fluctuations were measured at
various heights of the bed. The amplitudes of bubble formation
and eruption were measured and analysed in beds of particles with
different sizes and densities.
2. Experimental
2.1. Bubble injection experiments
The experimental setup used in this study is shown in Fig. 1. All
tests were conducted in a two dimensional fluidized bed with a
width, depth and height of 20 cm, 2 cm and 100 cm, respectively.
Front and rear face of the bed were glass which made it possible to
observe the formation of bubbles. The bed was connected to the
ground in order to discharge the electrostatic charges of particles.
Air was supplied by a compressor. Two mass flow controllers
(MFC) adjusted the flow rates of inlet gas, one for fluidization
and the other for injection. The fluidizing gas was directly entered
from the bottom of the bed (plenum), and the injection gas was
supplied to the bed from an orifice at the center of the distributor.
The injection gas stream was divided in two streams. One stream
led to a normally open valve and the other to a normally closed
valve. To inject bubbles, a controller closed the normally open
valve and opened the normally closed valve simultaneously for a
given time.
In all tests, the bed was at minimum fluidization condition
before injection of the gas from the central orifice. The injection
orifice was a cylinder with an inside diameter of 1.5 cm and out-
side diameter of 2 cm.
Two types of Geldart [11] group B particles used in the tests
were glass beads and sand. These particles had mean diameters
of 460 and 235 mm. The density of glass beads and sand particles
are 2400 and 1190 kg/m3, respectively. To investigate the effect
of density, the bed was filled with 460 mm glass bead or 460 mm
sand particles had the aspect ratio (L/D) of 1.5. When a gas–solid
Sensor positions
Sensor
Computer
Air Plenum
Camera
Ground
 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx
bed is fluidized, the drag force on particles is equal to the weight
force of particles [16]. Therefore, to eliminate the effect of weight
force of particles on the total amount of drag force, for sand parti-
cles with different sizes (460 and 235 mm), the bed was filled in a
same weight of particles.
2.2. Measurement apparatus
2.2.1. Image processing
To visualize bubbles, a GoPro Hero 4 Black camera with a max-
imum 240 fps recording speed was used in front of the bed. The
images were processed by Fiji as an open source image processing
software to determine size of bubbles. First, triangular method [35]
was used to find the adequate threshold limit for a binary image.
Then, by using outlines plugin, size of bubbles was calculated.
2.2.2. Pressure sampling
For measuring the pressure fluctuations, a pressure transmitter
was placed in the wall, below the surface of the bed, in three differ-
ent heights (HS1 = 0.0325 m, HS2 = 0.1325 m, HS3 = 0.2325 m). The
pressure data gathering system is shown in Fig. 2. It includes a
pressure sensor, signal conditioning and data acquisition board.
The pressure sensor was an absolute piezoresistive transducer
(SEN-(B075)3248 model of Kobold). The measured signals were
band-pass (hardware) filtered at lower cut-off frequency of
0.1 Hz to remove the bias value of the pressure fluctuations and
upper cut-off Nyquist frequency (200 Hz). Then, filtered signals
were amplified by amplification orders of 100. The pressure trans-
ducer was connected to a 16-bit data acquisition board (Advantech
1712L). The sampling frequency was 400 Hz, satisfying the Nyquist
criterion. When the bed is fluidized, before injection of bubbles,
this system is run until the bubbles erupt at bed surface.
3. Results and discussion
Experimental pressure fluctuations were investigated in beds of
particles of different sizes and densities. Two kinds of experiments
were conducted. In first experiment the gas injection time was
0.2 s, so the bubble detaches when injection stops. In the other
experiment the gas injection stops at different times and the bub-
ble detaches by itself. Images were compared with pressure fluctu-
ations. Amplitude of pressure fluctuations for formation,
detachment, passage and eruption of bubbles were also investi-
gated for different particles and orifice velocities.
3.1. The origin of pressure fluctuations
Pressure signal corresponding to a bubble, from formation to
eruption, in the bed of 460 mm sand particles at the gas velocity
2.36 m/s and the injection time of 0.2 s for the three sensor posi-
tions (HS1, HS2 and HS3) are shown in Fig. 3. The bed was in the flu-
idized state before gas injection. As a result, the average drag force
Fig. 2. Different parts of pressure data gathering system.
Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
Powder Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2020.04.031
3
exerted on particles was equal to the gravitational force in this sit-
uation [16]. When the gas was injected from the orifice, the gas
velocity in the bed was increased. According to van der schaaf
et al. [28], the pressure amplitude is related to the velocity differ-
ence between particles and gas, and the distance of the probe from
bed surface. They suggested that maximum amplitude is related to
the maximum friction force caused by an increase in gas velocity.
Fig. 3 shows that the changes in pressure from the time of gas
injection, formation, rise of the bubble, and shortly after its erup-
tion at the bed surface are as follows:
0-A: During this step, gas is injected from the orifice, and pres-
sure reaches a maximum at point A. According to Zenz [36], before
the formation of a bubble, particles above the orifice are pushed
aside until the presence of a voidage. He et al. [13] and Saidi
et al. [23] investigated CFD-DEM simulation of a single bubble in
gas solid fluidized beds. Their results showed that before presence
of a bubble, particles above orifice speed up. As a result, while par-
ticles speed up and are pushed aside, they get closer to each other
above the orifice, and dense phase voidage at higher levels
decreases. This lower dense phase voidage which causes an
increase in local density was previously shown by Winter [32]. This
lower local dense phase voidage is the main cause for the increase
of pressure fluctuations, not the difference between gas and parti-
cles. As shown in Fig. 3 the height of the bed does not change until
point A.
A-B: After point A, a bubble starts to form, all particles in the
bed begin to accelerate, height of the bed raises and consequently
bed voidage increases. This acceleration causes the particles to
move upward and the gas to move easily between particles. Conse-
quently, pressure of sensors begins to drop at this point to reach
the prepulsed pressure. This decrease also is not related to the
velocity difference between gas and particles. Afterwards, pressure
continues to decrease when gas injection is stopped and bubble is
detached from orifice at point B. This decrease can be due to an
increase in bed voidage because of the presence of bubble. At this
point, the height of the bed reaches a new higher value corre-
sponding to the bubble diameter.
B-C: There is a minimum after point B in the pressure profile at
point C in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 shows the images of bed when the gas injec-
tion was stopped. When injection stops, superficial gas velocity
decreases but bed voidage has not changed yet. As shown in this
Fig. 4 at t = 0.27 s, the bed height is still in the previous position
and has not changed much. As a result, pressure approaches a min-
imum at point C because bed has voidage corresponding to a
higher superficial gas velocity. van der Schaaf et al. [28] argued
that this minimum at point C should be due to the particles
deceleration.
C-D: As it is shown in Fig. 4, bed voidage decreases to the pre-
pulsed value at t = 0.38 s. At this time, pressure reaches to point D.
This point for lower sensor position (HS1) is a bit lower than pre-
pulsed pressure which can be due to the presence of bubble in
the bed and an increase in bed voidage. Amount of particles above
sensor located near distributer (HS1) does not change before and
4 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

Point A, t=0.07 s Point B, t=0.2 s Point C, t=0.27 s Point D, t=0.0.38 s Point E, t=0.92 s

Fig. 3. Pressure fluctuations of a bubble from formation to eruption for 460 mm sand particles.

t=0.27 s t=0.38 s
Fig. 4. Images of the bed when injection was stopped.

after gas injection. However, point D for sensors located at HS2 and above sensors located at HS2 and HS3. Pressure reaches a higher
HS3 has a higher value. This is because that when a bubble is value (0.12 kPa at HS3 and 0.11 kPa at HS2) than the former state
formed, the bed height increases, and more particles are present (before gas injection) because more particles impose more weight

Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
Powder Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2020.04.031
 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx
force at these points. Also, when bubble reached the sensors, that
mass began to be replaced by the bubble. Therefore, pressure
decreased, and point D for those sensors were located higher as a
maximum.
Furthermore, Fig. 3 shows that different sensors measure differ-
ent maximum. For point A, sensors located at higher positions
encounter a lower maximum. van der Schaaf et al. [28] showed that
pressure at point A decreases linearly with the distance of sensor
from the bed surface. They concluded that the decrease in pressure
of point A is not due to the damping mechanism, as suggested by Bi
et al. [4], but is due to the linear dependence of local pressure on the
bed height. As mentioned before, by getting close to the bed surface,
less mass is present above each sensor. Consequently, maximum at
point A for sensor located near distributor attenuated according to
the distance from the bed surface. It can be concluded that both
damping mechanism and linear dependence of local pressure on
the bed height are responsible for this phenomenon.
D-E: The sensor located at HS1, maintains its initial condition
during this phase. However, other sensors measure the pressure
fluctuations for passage of a bubble. Because amount of particles
above sensors located at HS2 and HS3 decreases due to presence
of the bubble, pressure decreases as well until the bubble com-
pletely passes the sensor. Pressure fluctuations also reach a value
lower than the prepulsed value. van der Schaaf et al. [28] con-
cluded that the voidage behind bubbles causes this minimum in
pressure profile.
By reaching a bubble to the surface of the bed pressure profile
exhibits another maximum (Fig. 3). van der Schaaf [28] concluded
that at this point the bubble explodes and disturbs the expanded
state of the bed. They showed that pressure sensors, located below
this level, detect these disturbances with a maximum. This distur-
bance is similar to a step compression in a fluidized bed by a pis-
ton, as presented by Musmarra et al. [20]. Musmarra et al. [18]
suggested that the particle–particle contact is the main wave prop-
agation mechanism at this point.
In order to further study point E, experimental images of the bub-
ble during eruption are shown in Fig. 5. It shows that at t = 0.79 s bub-
ble starts to erupt at bed surface. In Fig. 3 this time is related to an
increasing in the pressure profile and approaching to point E.
t=0.67 s t=0.71 s
t=0.88 s t=0.92 s
Fig.5. Eruption pictures of a single bubble for 460 mm sand particles.
Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
Powder Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apt.2020.04.031
5
When a bubble reaches the surface, particles move downward
from the higher level to its initial height. In other words, after bub-
ble eruption at the bed surface, the gas phase in the bed becomes
compressed by the moving downward particles and this increases
pressure to a maximum value. This process is same as the step
compression experiment conducted by Musmarra et al. [20]. They
compressed the bed surface by a piston and observed a maximum
in pressure profile just like what happens during bubble eruption.
At t = 0.92 s, pressure is maximum and then decreases because par-
ticles decelerate and the bed height is decreased to its initial
condition.
The more the bubble diameter is, the more height the bed
reaches and therefore the amplitude of point E has a higher value.
Roy and Davidson [22] also reported the same trend and concluded
that this maximum is related to the diameter of bubbles.
In previous experiments, end of gas injection and bubble
detachment happened almost at the same time and these two
events were not being distinguished. Therefore, another experi-
ment was performed to distinguish these points separately. In this
experiment, bubbles were created by applying different gas injec-
tion times at the same injection velocity.
Fig. 6 shows pressure profiles of these bubbles, from formation
to eruption, for orifice velocity of 2.63 m/s. It can be seen in this fig-
ure that for 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 s injection times, there is a time differ-
ence in the trend of pressure profiles. Since the flow rate of
injections were same, the amplitudes of point A are almost same.
However, bubble detachment and end of gas injection which were
happen simultaneously at point B in Fig. 3 can be distinguished in
Fig. 6. For gas injection times of 0.3 s and 0.4 s, there is a time dif-
ference between bubble detachment (point B1) and end of gas
injection (point B2). At point B1, the bubble detaches from the ori-
fice while the flow is not stopped. There is no minimum in pressure
profiles until the gas injection stops. Pressure of the bed at points
B1 and B2 is 0.15 kPa less than the initial value. During these times,
the bubble is presented in the bed and the injection of gas has
increased the superficial gas velocity of the bed. Therefore, the
bed voidage increases and causes a 0.15 kPa pressure drop. When
the injection is finished, pressure fluctuations reach a minimum at
point C as discussed before.
t=0.75 s t=0.79 s t=0.84 s
t=0.96 s t=1 s t=1.05 s
6 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig.6. Pressure fluctuations of bubbles from formation to eruption for 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 s injection times.

Fig. 7. Amplitude of bubble formation (point A) for different orifice velocities and probe positions (HS1, HS2 and HS3) for 460 mm glass bead and sand particles.

3.2. Pressure maximum amplitude at point A
The maximum amplitude of the pressure profile is when bub-
bles begin to form. Fig. 7 shows this amplitude for various orifice
velocities and particles at different probe positions for 0.2 s injec-
tion time. This figure exhibits that the amplitude of point A
increases linearly with increasing injection velocity. Rong et al.
[21] showed that gas leakage during bubble formation decreases
by increasing injection velocity. This trend demonstrates that
increasing injection velocity causes more particles to speed up,
more decrease in dense phase voidage and amplifies the pressure
fluctuations. Winter [32] measured local density of the bed on dis-
tributor (where bubbles are formed), and showed that by increas-
ing pressure, local density increases as well. Fig. 7 shows that
amplitude of point A is also related to the probe position. The
probes located near distributor (HS1) and surface of the bed (HS3)
measured the highest and lowest amplitudes, respectively.
It can be seen in Fig. 7 that the amplitude of pressure at point A
for glass bead particles is greater than that of sand particles. The
reason for this trend is that glass beads have more density than
sand, thus, the weight force of particles in a bed of glass beads is
more than in a bed of sand with the same height. Consequently,
when the bubble begins to form (point A), greater pressure drop
is needed to increase the bed height.
Fig. 8 shows the amplitude of point A for 235 and 460 mm sand
particles at different orifice velocities. This figure shows that the
amplitude of this point for different size of particles is almost the
same for the same orifice velocity and it increases with increasing
orifice velocity. As mentioned before, the bed was filled with the
same weight of particles. This means that the maximum pressure

Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
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 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx 7

Fig. 8. Amplitude of point A for different orifice velocities and probe positions (HS1, HS2 and HS3) for 460 mm and 235 mm sand particles.

Fig. 9. Bubble equivalent diameter for glass beads and sand particles with various sizes at different orifice velocities.

for formation of a bubble (point A) does not highly depend on the
size of particles and is primarily related to the injection velocity
and weight of particles in the bed.
Bubble equivalent diameter for 460 mm and 235 mm glass beads
and sand particles at different orifice velocities is shown in Fig. 9. It
can be seen than finer particles have a higher bubble diameter for
same orifice velocities. Since the amplitudes of point A for same
orifice velocities are almost similar in the beds of 460 mm and
235 mm particles, it can be concluded that this amplitude is inde-
pendent of the bubble size.
3.3. Pressure maximum amplitude at point E
As shown previously, the pressure at point E is related to the
bed compression due to the bubble eruption at the bed surface.
At this point, height of the bed decreases to its initial value and
bubble eruption cause a maximum in the pressure profile. This
amplitude is shown in Fig. 10 for beds of 460 mm glass beads and
sand particles at different sensor positions and orifice velocities.
It can be seen that the amplitude of pressure at point E
increases by increasing the injection velocity (or increasing bubble
diameter). Fig. 10 shows that this amplitude in a bed of glass beads
or sand particles is almost the same at different heights in the bed.
It means that amplitude of this point does not depend on the dis-
tance from bed surface, unlike amplitude of point A. This trend is
also reported by van der Schaaf et al. [28]. But the sensor located
at HS3, which was very close to the bed surface, could not show
that result because when the bubble reached the bed surface, but-
tom of the bubble was still passing the sensor (Fig. 3 and Fig. 5). As
a result, the sensor detected both of them at the same time and
pressure fluctuations overlapped. That is the reason for lower pres-
sure maximum at point E for sensor located at HS3.
As mentioned before, the main cause for the amplitude of point
E was the force particles impose on gas phase when they are

Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
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8 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 10. Amplitude of point E for 460 mm glass bead and sand particles at different heights of bed and injection velocities.

Fig. 11. Amplitude of point E for 460 mm and 235 mm sand particles at different heights of bed and injection velocities.

coming down to reach the initial bed height. Therefore, particles
which have more density causes higher gas compression and con-
sequently a higher amplitude at point E. It can be concluded that
the pressure at point E, is a function of bubble size and density
of particles as suggested by Roy and Davidson [22]:
Pmax ¼ qb DHB
where qb and DHB are density of the bed and bubble diameter at top
of the bed, respectively. The ratio of this value for a same bubble
diameter in the beds of glass beads and sand particles is equal to
the ratio of bulk densities. Since size of particles, aspect ratio (L/
D) and bubble diameter are same in the beds of glass beads and
sand particles, the ratio of bulk densities corresponds to the ratio
of particles’ density. Therefore, the ratio of Pmax in these beds is
2.01. At the same bubble size for glass beads and sand particles (ori-
fice velocity of 2.36 m/s for sand particles and 3.93 m/s for glass
beads), pressure amplitude at point E in our experiments were
almost 0.22 kPa for glass beads and 0.12 kPa for sand particles.
The ratio of these amplitudes is about 1.83 which is close to the
result of Roy and Davidson [22] equation.
Amplitude of eruption for different size of sand particles
ð1Þ
(235 mm and 460 mm) and injection velocities is shown in Fig. 11.
It shows that finer particles have a lower amplitude at point E. This
figure shows that even for larger bubbles (higher orifice velocities)
in the bed of 235 mm sand particles, amplitude of point E is greater
for a bed of larger particles. Our experiments show that the distur-
bances on bed surface are also related to the size of particles. As
suggested by Xu and Zhu [34], voidage at minimum fluidization
is related to the particle diameter. They showed that finer particles
have a higher bed voidage. So, when particles come down to reach

Please cite this article as: M. I. Nimvari, R. Zarghami and D. Rashtchian, Experimental investigation of bubble behavior in gas-solid fluidized bed, Advanced
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 M.I. Nimvari et al. / Advanced Powder Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx
the initial height, the gas in bed has more space to pass through
particles and therefore, the pressure of the gas in bed does not
increase as much as larger particles.
4. Conclusion
Pressure fluctuations for a single bubble injection in a gas–solid
fluidized bed were measured, and then investigated with high
speed camera images. The reason for changes in pressure fluctua-
tions during formation, end of injection, passage and eruption of
bubbles was discussed. Results showed that the maximum ampli-
tude of formations (point A) was not related to the bubble diame-
ter, and it was related to the injection velocity, density of particles,
and height of the probe positions. When injection velocity, density
or the probe distance from bed surface increases amplitude of
point A increases as well. Bubble detaches from orifice and pres-
sure amplitude reaches a lower value than prepulsed value which
was due to presence of bubble and an increase in bed voidage. The
minimum amplitude of fluctuations (point C) occurs when the
injection is finished, and the bed has voidage corresponding to a
higher superficial gas velocity. During passage of a bubble in front
of a sensor, particles above the sensor replace with the bubble and
pressure profile decreases. When bubbles erupt at bed surface, bed
height decreases to its initial condition and downward movement
of particles causes another maximum in pressure profile (point E).
It is shown that amplitude of this point is related to bubble diam-
eter, density and size of particles. It was concluded that the
changes in amplitudes of all these phenomena (formation, end of
injection, passage and eruption of bubbles) in gas–solid fluidized
bed are due to changes in bed voidage, dense phase voidage,
amount of particles above each sensor and movements of particles
during eruption.
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