i An update to this article is included at the end

Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498

www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Modelling the motion of cylindrical particles in a nonuniform
ow

Chungen Yin∗ , Lasse Rosendahl, Sren Knudsen Kr, Henrik Srensen
Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Pon 101, Aalborg East DK-9220, Denmark

Received 28 August 2002; received in revised form 29 January 2003; accepted 22 April 2003

Abstract

The models currently used in computational
uid dynamics codes to predict solid fuel combustion rely on a spherical shape assumption.
Cylinders and disks represent a much better geometrical approximation to the shape of bio-fuels such as straws and woods chips. A sphere
gives an extreme in terms of the volume-to-surface-area ratio, which impacts both motion and reaction of a particle. For a nonspherical
particle, an additional lift force becomes important, and generally hydrodynamic forces introduce a torque on the particle as the centre
of pressure does not coincide with the centre of mass. Therefore, rotation of a nonspherical particle needs to be considered. This paper
derives a model for tracking nonspherical particles in a nonuniform
ow eld, which is validated by a preliminary experimental study:
the calculated results agree well with measurements in both translation and rotation aspects. The model allows to take into account shape
details of nonspherical particles so that both the motion and the chemical reaction of particles can be modelled more reasonably. The
ultimate goal of such a study is to simulate
ow and combustion in biomass-red furnaces using nonspherical particle tracking model
instead of traditional sphere assumption, and thus improve the design of biomass-red boilers.
? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Particle; Multiphase
ow; Modelling; Hydrodynamics; Biomass combustion; Nonspherical

1. Introduction of nonspherical particles, especially particle deposition in

Biomass combustion for power generation is now gain-
ing more and more attention, but biomass particles dier
a lot from traditional pulverized coal particles, which are
normally approximated as spherical particles in combustion
simulation. A biomass particle is generally nonspherical, and
looks more like a cylinder or a disk. For example, typical
straw particles used for combustion can be approximated as
cylinders with a mean diameter of about 2 mm and mean
length of about 20 mm (maximum length of ∼ 150 mm for
individual particles). The sphere assumption gives an ex-
treme in terms of the volume-to-surface-area ratio, which
impacts both the motion and the reaction rates of particles.
Comparing with a spherical particle, a nonspherical parti-
cle will also be subjected to an additional lift, and a torque
created by hydrodynamic forces, which act on its centre
of pressure located some distance away from its centre of
mass. Some studies, theoretical, experimental and applied,
have been successfully performed for predicting motions
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +45-9635-9248; fax: +45-9815-1411.
E-mail address: chy@iet.auc.dk (C. Yin).
two-phase
ows, e.g., Blaser (2002), Brenner (1964), Fan
and Ahmadi (2000), Gallily and Cohen (1979), Gradon,
Grzybowski, and Pilacinski (1988), Higashitani, Inada, and
Ochi (1991). Most of the existing studies are for tiny and
nonreacting particles.
This study is conducted with such an ultimate goal that we
are able to simulate
ow and combustion in biomass-red
boilers using nonspherical particle tracking model instead of
traditional spherical particle assumption, so that both motion
history and combustion history of nonspherical particles can
be predicted more reasonably. As the rst stage, a model
for nonspherical particles tracking in a simple nonuniform
two-phase
ow is derived in this paper, in which forces, in-
cluding inertia, drag, gravity, lift, a force due to pressure
gradient and virtual-mass force, are taken into account in
particle force balance; two major torques, torque due to non-
coincident centre of mass and centre of pressure (on the
latter hydrodynamic forces act) and torque due to the resis-
tance on a rotating body, are considered in particle rotation
motion. Based on the model, a computer code is developed,
in which, particle rotation and orientation are determined by
including the shape details of nonspherical particles; while

0009-2509/03/$ - see front matter ? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0009-2509(03)00214-8
3490 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498

particle position and translation velocity are still determined

by the point-particle assumption, however they are orienta-
tion dependent. The coupling between particle motion and

ow eld is taken into account with a standard method in
any CFD code. For simplicity, a cylindrical particle is as-
sumed in this paper.
To validate the model, the motion of a cylindrical PVC
particle in originally stagnant water is studied experimen-
tally, where the undisturbed stagnant water becomes nonuni-
form under the eect of the settling of the big PVC particle.
The modelled motion agrees well with the experiments,
in both translation and rotation aspects, which indicates an
encouraging potential to extend the model for practical
applications.

Fig. 1. A cylindrical particle and the coordinate systems.

2. Coordinate systems

Both translation and rotation motions are included in non-

spherical particle tracking, and normally they are described
in dierent coordinate systems: with translation motion in
inertial frame; while with rotation motion in particle frame.
So, the dierent coordinate frames and the transformation
between them are rstly introduced.
Fig. 1 shows the schematic of a cylindrical particle
moving in a general
ow eld and the corresponding
coordinate systems. x̃ = [x; y; z] is the inertial coordi-
→
nates; x = [x ; y ; z  ] is the particle coordinate system
with its origin being at the particle mass centre and
→
its axes being the principal axis; and x = [x ; y ; z  ]
is the co-moving coordinate with its origin coincid- Fig. 2. Denition sketch of the Euler angles.
ing with that of the particle frame and its axes be-
ing parallel to the corresponding axes of the inertial The time dependence of the Euler angles is related to the
frame. angular velocity according to the equations
The transformation between the co-moving and the par-  
d
 
ticle frame coordinates is given by Goldstein (1980), and !x
cos − !y
sin
 dt 
widely used in nonspherical particle tracking, e.g., by Blaser    
 
(2002), Fan and Ahmadi (2000), and Gallily and Cohen  d    (!x
sin + !y
cos )= sin
 ;
 = (3)
(1979),  dt      

  d
d  !z
− cos

→ → dt

x = A · x ; (1) dt
where, t is time, and [!x
; !y
; !z
] is angular velocities of
where A=[aij ] is the transformation matrix, whose elements the particle with respect to the particle axes.
represent the direction cosines of the particle axes in the Due to the inevitable singularity in determining the change
inertial frame, and can be expressed in terms of Euler angles rate of Euler angle , a transformation matrix in terms of
(
; ; ). The Euler angles, as shown in Fig. 2, are dened
following the x-convention of Goldstein:

 
cos cos  − cos
sin  sin cos sin  + cos
cos  sin sin sin

 
 
A =  −sin cos  − cos
sin  cos −sin sin  + cos
cos  cos cos sin
 : (2)
 
sin
sin  −sin
cos  cos

 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498 3491

Euler parameters, given by Hughes (1986), is used in this respect to the particle axes and can be expressed as, Ix
=
study, Iy
= 14 mp a2 + 13 mp b2 , and Iz
= 12 mp a2 for a cylinder,
  where a is its radius, and b is its half length (aspect ratio
1 − 2(22 + 32 ) 2(1 2 + 3 ) 2(1 3 − 2 )
   = b=a). [Tx
; Ty
; Tz
] are torques acting on the particle.
A=  2(2 1 − 3 ) 1 − 2(32 + 12 ) 2(2 3 + 1 )  ; Here, it should be emphasized that, in the above equations,
translation motions are expressed in the inertial frame; while
2(3 1 + 2 ) 2(3 2 − 1 ) 1 − 2(12 + 22 ) rotation motions are written in the particle frame.
(4)

where 1 ; 2 ; 3 and  are Euler parameters, and they are 4. Forces on the particle
related to Euler angles by
−
−
4.1. Particle force balance
1 = cos sin ; 2 = sin sin ; (5)
2 2 2 2
The equation governing particle velocity ṽ in a nonuni-
+
+
form
ow eld ũ was derived by Maxey and Riley (1983),
3 = sin cos ;  = cos cos : (6)
2 2 2 2
dṽ
In this work, Euler angles are used for assigning the initial p V = 6a1 (ũ − ṽ) + V (p − f )g̃
dt
particle orientations. The corresponding initial Euler param- inertia
drag gravity
eters are obtained using Eqs. (5) and (6), and then used to
evaluate the initial transformation matrix. In the subsequent Dũ 1 d
+ f V + 2 f V (ũ − ṽ)
calculations, the time histories of Euler parameters are cal- Dt dt
culated according to Eq. (7), pressure virtual mass
 d  gradient
1
   
 dt  t
(d=d )(ṽ − ũ)
  !x
− 3 !y
+ 2 !z
−6a21  d : (12)
 d2    ((t − )=f )1=2
 
 1 3 !x
+ !y
− 1 !z

0
 dt  
 =  : (7)
  2 
Basset history term
 d3   − !
2 x
+  !
1 y
+ ! z 


  In the above equation, we neglect the Faxen correction term,
 dt 
  −1 !x
− 2 !y
− 3 !z
which becomes signicant only in the event of large curva-
d
ture in the velocity prole. f and  are the density and vis-
dt cosity of the surrounding
uid; p and V represent the den-
sity and volume of the particle; and ũ = [ux ; uy ; uz ] describes
the
uid undisturbed velocity vector at the point occupied
3. Basic equation of motion
by the particle’s centre of mass, with respect to the inertial
frame. In Eq. (12), the derivative d=dt is used to denote a
The equation of motion of a nonspherical particle moving
time derivative following the moving particle, so that
in an arbitrary
ow is given by Gallily and Cohen (1979) and  
used to study wall deposition of small ellipsoids in turbulent dui @ui @ui
= + vj (13)

ows (Fan & Ahmadi, 2000), dt @t @xj
Translation motion is the time derivative of
uid velocity component ui . The
dṽ derivative D=Dt is used by contrast to denote the time deriva-
mp = F̃: (8) tives following a
uid element, and
dt  
Dui @ui @ui
Rotation motion = + uj (14)
Dt @t @xj
d!x

Ix
− !y
!z
(Iy
− Iz
) = Tx
; (9) is the
uid acceleration as observed at the instantaneous cen-
dt
tre of the particle. The dierent terms in Eq. (12) represent
d!y
in order, the force needed to accelerate the particle, viscous
Iy
− !z
!x
(Iz
− Ix
) = Ty
; (10)
dt Stokes drag, gravity, a pressure gradient force accounting
for the acceleration of the displaced
uid, “virtual mass”
d!z

Iz
− !x
!y
(Ix
− Iy
) = Tz
: (11) force, and Basset history term.
dt The order-of-magnitude estimates presented by Lazaro
In these equations, mp is the particle mass, ṽ = [vx ; vy ; vz ] and Lasheras (1989) indicate that, for small heavy particles
is the translation velocity vector of the particle mass-centre in the dilute regime, drag and inertia eects dominate over
in the inertial frame, and F̃ = [Fx ; Fy ; Fz ] are forces act- those of the pressure eld, the virtual mass, and the particle’s
ing on the particle. [Ix
; Iy
; Iz
] are moments of inertia with history. According to this, only the terms describing inertia,
3492 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498

CD is the drag coecient. Chhabra, Agarwal, and Sinha

Fig. 3. Incidence angle, aerodynamic forces and centre of pressure.
drag and gravity are retained in the study of the accumulation
and dispersion of heavy particles in forced mixing layers
(Martin & Meiburg, 1994; Raju & Meiburg, 1995).
In this study, since our nal purpose is to track the non-
spherical biomass particle in biomass-red furnaces and the
PVC particle used for experiment is a “light” particle, the
“virtual mass” force is retained, as well as the force arising
due to the pressure gradient in the
uid. Additionally, since
we are tracking nonspherical particles while not spheres, a
lift should also be taken into account, as stated above. There-
fore, the governing equation for evolution of the particle’s
velocity then becomes
dṽ
p V = F̃D + V (p − f )g̃ + F̃ PG + F̃ VM + F̃ L ; (15)
dt
where, F̃D ; F̃ PG ; F̃ VM and F̃ L represent drag, force due to
the pressure gradient in the
uid, vitual-mass force and lift,
respectively. The forces, F̃ PG and F̃ VM , are determined in the
same way as shown in Eq. (12); while F̃D and F̃ L , governed
(1999) collected about 1900 individual experimental data
of drag coecient on nonspherical particles from 19 inde-
pendent studies, covering wide ranges of particle shapes:
cylinders, needles, cones, prisms, discs, cubes and so on,
and encompassing wide ranges of physical and kinematics
conditions as: sphericity of 0.09 –1 and Reynolds number of
10−4 –5 × 105 ; examined critically the performances of ve
commonly used methods with those data, including Haider
and Levenspiel (1989) and Ganser (1993); and found that
the best method was that proposed by Ganser (1993): the
resulting overall mean error is about 16%. The method of
Ganser (1993) is therefore used here,
CD 24
= [1 + 0:1118(Rep K1 K2 )0:6567 ]
K2 Rep K1 K2
0:4305
+ ; (18)
1 + 3305=(Rep K1 K2 )
where, coecient K1 = (dn =(3d) + 2=(3 0:5 ))−1 ; coecient
)0:5743
K2 = 101:8148(−log
 ; dn is the equal projected area circle
diameter, dn = 4Se 1 =. Rep is particle Reynolds number,
dened on the basis of the relative velocity between parti-
cle and the surrounding
uids and equal-volume sphere di-
ameter; is particle sphericity, and can be calculated as
= s=S; s is the surface of a sphere having the same vol-
ume as the particle and S is the actual surface area of the
nonspherical particle.
4.3. Lift force
A lift force can be directly related to a drag force; how-
ever, it is still dicult to assign a specic value to the con-
stant of proportionality. Here, a lift formation is used, in
→

by particle’s orientation (e.g., Blaser, 2002; Hoerner, 1965), which the particle major axis ( z  ) is also used to character-
will be introduced below. ize the force.
In this model, except Faxen correction term and Basset Considering that the lift force is orthogonal to the relative
history term, some other terms, such as thermophoretic force velocity (ũ −ṽ) and lies in the plane dened by the particle
→
and Brownian force are also neglected, as well as Saman major axis direction ( z  ) and the relative velocity and that
lift thanks to the negligible rotation with respect to the major the lift must be invariant under a 180◦ rotation of the particle
→
axis of particle, i.e., z  -axis in Fig. 1. It might be acceptable major axis z  and vanishes if = 0 or , we express the lift
i
to exclude these forces in the particle force balance of the force as
gas–solid
ow in a biomass-red furnace. →
1 z  · (ũ − ṽ) → 
F̃ L = CL f Se 2 z × (ũ − ṽ) × (ũ − ṽ);
4.2. Drag force 2 |ũ − ṽ|
(19)
The drag force is commonly expressed over the entire where, Se 2 is the particle area normal to the direction of the
Reynolds number spectra as lift force and is calculated by
F̃D = 12 CD f Se 1 |ũ − ṽ|(ũ − ṽ); (16) Se 2 = a2 (sin2 i + (4=)2 cos2 i )0:5 ; (20)
where Se 1 is the particle area normal to the direction of the CL is the lift coecient. In this study, it is determined in
drag force. It changes with the incidence angle ( i ) between the way that the ratio of lift to drag meets the relationship
relative velocity (ũ − ṽ) and particle major axis direction (Hoerner, 1965)
→
( z  ), as shown in Fig. 3, and is determined by |F̃ L |
= |sin2 ( i ) cos ( i )|: (21)
Se 1 = a2 (cos2 i + (4=)2 sin2 i )1=2 ; (17) |F̃D |
 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498
5. Torques on the particle
Two contributions to the torque acting on the particle are
taken into account in this model: one is caused by nonco-
incident centre of mass and centre of pressure, on the latter
hydrodynamic forces act; and the other is due to the resis-
tance on a rotating body.
5.1. Torque due to hydrodynamic forces
As the centre of pressure does not coincide with the centre
of mass at nonzero incidence angles, hydrodynamic forces
described above, which act at the centre of pressure rather
than at the centre of mass, will give rise to a torque on the
particle.
The centre of pressure is located at a distance behind the
leading edge about 0:25×chordlength in a fairly wide range
of incidence angles (approximately 0 –15◦ ) for a symmetric

at plate (Hoerner, 1965). Generally following this idea, and
also taking incidence angle, i , and particle aspect ratio, ,
into account, a distance between the centre of pressure and
the centre of mass of a cylinder might be proposed in this
paper, as
xcp = 0:25b(1 − e3(1−) )|cos3 i |;
which is similar in form with that in Rosendahl (2000).
Then, the torque can be expressed as
→
T1 = (xcp z  ) × (F̃D + F̃ L + F̃ PG + F̃ VM ):
Here, it should be stated this torque is expressed in the
inertial frame. The torque calculated in the inertial frame
should be transformed to that in the particle frame, using
T1 = AT1 :
5.2. Torque due to resistance
If the particle has an angular velocity, !, with respect to
an axis, it will introduce a torque due to the resistance on
the rotating body. This torque will always act to reduce the
angular velocity, as shown schematically in Fig. 4.
This torque contribution can be obtained by integration
along the particle length. The local relative velocity of the
Fig. 4. Torque due to the resistance.
3493

uid due to particle rotation is (!f − !p )l, where !f is
used to take into account the
uid undisturbed vorticity at
the point occupied by the particle’s centre of mass, with
respect to the particle frame, which might be related with
the local velocity gradient; l is the distance from the centre
of rotation. The resulting torque is thus expressed as
L=2 L=2
T2 = 2 FD dl = CD f (!f − !p )2 l2 Dl dl: (25)
0 0
In a simple nonuniform
ow eld, this torque can be sim-
plied. For example, the component with respect to x -axis,
as shown in Fig. 4, can be expressed as
1
T2; x
= CD f × 2a × !x2
× (2b)4 (26)
64
by using D = 2a, L = 2b, and !p = !x
for those notations
in Eq. (25). In the same way, the other two components can
also be written. However, when shear or vorticity are present
in the
ow eld, this torque will appear in a more complex
form. Dierent with the torque due to hydrodynamic forces,
this torque is dened directly in the particle frame.
(22)
6. Computational procedure
Based on the above model, a computer code was devel-
(23) oped to solve the translation and rotation of nonspherical
particles in a simple nonuniform 3D
ow eld. Here, all the
dimensional equations are used, and can be converted into
nondimensional forms in case of need. The computational
algorithm mainly consists of the following steps:
(24) (1) solve
ow equation in a standard way as described in
any computational
uid dynamics code. In this study,
i.e., the Navier-Stokes equation;
(2) set initialization condition of particle;
(3) calculate all the forces acting on the particle, as listed
in Eq. (15);
(4) calculate the two torques acting on the particle, as
shown in Eqs. (24) and (25), respectively;
(5) solve the basic equation of motion, Eqs. (8)–(11); and
update particle position and orientation;
(6) repeat Steps (3)–(4) until the particle arrives outlet
boundary. In this study, i.e., trapped at the bottom wall
of the water tank;
(7) couple the particle iteration to the
ow calculation; then
return to step (1) and continue the procedure until the
desired terminating condition is reached.
In the procedure, steps (1) and (7) are standard meth-
ods and not introduced in this paper; while steps (2) – (6)
are special process for cylindrical particles in a nonuniform

ow, which are quite dierent with traditional spherical par-
ticles, and described in details as above.
3494 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498
Table 1
A PVC cylindrical particle used in experiments
Material 2a (mm) 2b (mm) d (mm) p (kg=m3 )
Cylinders (sphericity = 0:593; aspect ratio  = 9:242)
PVC 5.41 50 13.00 1366
Fig. 5. A measured trajectory of the PVC particle in originally stagnant
water.
7. Results and discussions
A preliminary experimental study, including several re-
peated measurements for one PVC particle, was carried out
to validate the above model and the code. As shown in
Table 1, a PVC particle ( ≈ 10) was used as the study
object, and water was used as the
uid (p =f = 1:36). The
experimental setup consists of a digital video camera JVC
GR-DVL9800, a vacuum ejector, a particle dispenser (xed
initial orientation
0 = 60◦ , 0 = 0 = 0; and without any
initial release velocity), two 500 W halogen lamps, and a
rectangular fall tube (l×w ×h=0:475 m ×0:48 m ×1:5 m),
as described in details by SHrensen and Rosendahl (2001).
The motion of the PVC particle, including both transla-
tion and rotation, was tracked and recorded experimentally.
Fig. 5 shows a sample of the measured trajectory of the par-
ticle settling in originally stagnant water (the tube is about
half-full of water).
The calculations are conducted on the basis of the same
particle, tube and initial release condition. The resulting
nonuniform
ow eld is shown in Fig. 6: the settling of the
big PVC particle has obvious eect on the
ow eld. The
calculated motions of the PVC particle in this nonuniform

ow eld are plotted against the measurements.
7.1. Translation motion of the PVC particle
Fig. 7 shows the translation motion of the particle. The
calculated z-position agrees very well with the measurement,
Fig. 6. The calculated nonuniform
ow eld: (a) Flow at the X -middle
plane; (b) Flow at the Y -middle plane.
as seen in Fig. 7(a), which implies a correct expression of
the hydrodynamic forces.
The calculated y-position, shown in Fig. 7(b), is not
plotted against the measurements here, because the repeated
measurements themselves show a big discrepancy in the lat-
eral trajectories. However, one can see the calculated lateral
trajectory agrees qualitatively with the observation, as
shown in Fig. 5. Dierent with spherical particles, the lat-
eral movement of the cylindrical particle is also important.
To quantitatively verify the lateral motion of the cylin-
drical particle, more experiments need to be planned to
achieve measured lateral trajectories, as well repeatable as
its vertical trajectory.
The translation velocities of the particle, calculated
with the model, are shown in Fig. 8, from which the
terminal velocity of the PVC particle is estimated to be
0:1265 m=s.
Fig. 9 shows the evolution of the particle Reynolds num-
ber and the resulting drag coecient, with the estimated
mean values about 1372 and 2.49, respectively. The parti-
cle Reynolds number in the experiments is close to some
straw particles of a certain size in real furnaces and thus, the
possible behaviour of the straw particles of such a size in a
real furnace might be partly re
ected by these experiments
thanks to similar particle Reynolds number, particle aspect
ratio. However, the straw particle Reynolds numbers in a
real furnace covers a huge range, depending largely on straw
particle size distribution. For example, for a big straw par-
ticle of equal-volume sphere diameter d ≈ 13 mm in a real
gas/straw co-ring furnace of capacity about 400 MW, the
 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498 3495

Fig. 7. Position of the PVC particle during settling: (a) Vertical position, Z; (b) Lateral position, Y .

Fig. 8. Calculated translation velocities of the PVC particle during settling.

average particle Reynolds number is found to be Rep ≈ 4100 sphere diameter d ≈ 0:16 mm, the average particle Reynolds
over the initial 5 m path and Rep ≈ 1100 over the full fur- number is much lower: Rep ≈ 8 over the initial 5 m path and
nace height; while for a tiny straw particle of equal-volume Rep ≈ 0:7 over the full furnace height.
3496 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498

Fig. 9. Calculated particle Reynolds number and drag coecient during settling.

Fig. 10. Calculated rotation of the PVC particle during settling: (a) Angular velocity with respect to dierent particle axes; (b) contributions of the two
dierent torques.
 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498
Fig. 11. Incidence angle and the orientation of the particle against horizontal plane.
7.2. Rotation motion of the PVC particle
The calculated rotation of the PVC particle is plotted in
Fig. 10, including angular velocity and acceleration. In this
case, the rotation with respect to x -axis of the particle (paral-
lel to the inertial x-axis in Fig. 5) takes the leading role. The
angular velocity oscillates around 0 and has a stable
uctua-
tion with a mean peak about 1:5 s−1 . With respect to another
minor axis (y -axis), there is still some rotation, which is
caused by the nonuniform
ow eld, but in a less important
role. The rotation with respect to the major axis of the par-
ticle can be ignored at all in this
ow. Fig. 10(b) shows the
angular acceleration caused by both the two torques. It is
found that the torque due to resistance on a rotating particle
also plays an important role in
uids of high densities.
Fig. 11 shows the resulting particle orientation history
due to rotation, including the incidence angle and the angle
between particle major axis and the horizontal plane, from
which one can see the calculated orientation history agrees
well with both the observations and the measurements. Here,
it has to be stated that, the two angles in Fig. 11 do not nec-
essarily sum up to 90◦ , since the relative velocity vector is
not always parallel to the inertial Z-axis during the particle’s
settling. The incidence angle oscillates around i = 90◦ . It
can be understood since this point is in fact a stable equilib-
rium in this kind of
ow. When the incidence angle deviates
from i = 90◦ , the hydrodynamic forces act as a resistance
to reduce the deviation; while any deviation from i = 0◦
will accelerate the rotation away from the point under the
action of hydrodynamic forces, so point i = 0◦ is an unsta-
ble equilibrium state.
The calculated angle between the particle major axis
(z  -axis) and the inertial y-axis also agree well with the
measured one: the particle’s oscillation frequency is very
well reproduced; although the amplitude is a little lower at
some peaks than the measured one. A collection of a large
3497
number of measurements is needed for possible quantitative
error analysis of the experimental data themselves, then to
further validate the model.
In short, for the current measurements the model is found
capable of tracking correctly the PVC particle in a simple
nonuniform
ow eld, in both the translation and the rotation
aspects. With more experiments carried out, the model will
be further validated and ned.
8. Conclusions
In this paper, a model is successfully derived to track the
motion of nonspherical particles in a non-uniform
ow eld,
including translation and rotation aspects. The model holds
for both high- and low-speed
ows. The good agreement of
preliminary experiments and the calculated results indicates
an encouraging potential toward tracking nonspherical parti-
cles in biomass-red furnaces. The model does not increase
signicantly the computational cost.
However, this model still needs to be further rened for
general and practical applications. For example, some other
forces, such as Faxen correction terms and Basset history
terms, might be taken into account in some cases when the
nonuniform
ow eld around the particle is relatively com-
plex, e.g., largely curved; the collisions between particles
also need to be included when volume fraction of particles
becomes larger.
Notation
a radius of cylinder, m
A = [aij ] transformation matrix
b half-length of cylinder, m
CD drag coecient
3498 C. Yin et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 58 (2003) 3489 – 3498

CL coecients in evaluating lift
; ; Euler angles

force
0 ; 0 ; 0 initial orientation of particle
d equal-volume sphere diameter, m particle sphericity (=s=S)
dn equal projected area circle diam-  viscosity of the surrounding
uid,
eter, m kg=(m s)
F̃ = [Fx ; Fy ; Fz ] force acting on the particle, N f density of the surrounding
uid,
F̃D drag force, N kg=m3
* p particle density, kg=m3
F lift force, N
L !x
; !y
; !z
angular velocities of particle with
F̃ PG force due to the pressure gradient respect to the particle axes, 1/s
in the
uid, N
F̃ VM vitual-mass force, N
Ix
; Iy
; Iz
moments of inertia of the parti- References
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 Update
Chemical Engineering Science
Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 January 2011, Page 117

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2010.10.021
 Chemical Engineering Science 66 (2011) 117

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering Science

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

Corrigendum

Corrigendum to ‘‘Modelling the motion of cylindrical particles in a nonuniform

flow’’ [Chem. Eng. Sci. 58 (2003) 3489–3498]
Chungen Yin n, Lasse Rosendahl, Søren Knudsen Kær, Henrik Sørensen
Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg East, Denmark

a r t i c l e in f o

Article history:
Received 30 September 2010
Accepted 9 October 2010

The authors inform that there is an incomplete equation in the published article.
Eq. (23)
! ! ! ! ! !
T1 ¼ ðxcp zu Þ  ð F D þ F L þ F PG þ F VM Þ ð23Þ
As expressed in the source code developed for this article, the above equation should be completed with an extra-condition, as follows:
! ! ! ! ! !
T1 ¼ ðxcp zu Þ  ð F D þ F L þ F PG þ F VM Þ ð23Þ
! ! ! !0
If cos a 4 0, then T1 will change its sign, i.e., T1 ¼ ð1ÞUT1 . Here a is the angle between the orientation of the particle axis, z , and the net
! ! ! ! !
hydrodynamic force, F  F D þ F L þ F PG þ F VM .
The first author thanks Prof. Luis Adriano Oliveira from Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal and
his co-workers, A. Gameiro, B.R. Baliga, C.X. Viegas and X. Viegas, for their valuable discussions and informing me this mistake. To offset the
inconvenience induced by this mistake, a user-defined function (UDF) version of this model applicable to commercial CFD package
(FLUENT) will be available upon readers’ request.

DOI of original article: 10.1016/S0009-2509(03)00214-8

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 45 30622577; fax: + 45 98151411.
E-mail address: chy@et.aau.dk (C. Yin).

0009-2509/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ces.2010.10.021