Work

Allowing optical measurements in a 3D packed bed with gas flow: A novel reactor concept

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Industrial processes based on packed beds with gaseous flow come with high energy and resource consumption. To gain a better understanding of these phenomena, it is essential to investigate flow properties inside such systems. This study presents a novel reactor concept that allows for direct optical measurements inside the voids of the packing. It is based on polyhedral parallel arranged particles in a modular way. Through the modularity different regular and irregular configurations can be generated allowing for direct optical access avoiding major distortion. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is applied to obtain spatially and temporally highly resolved 2D flow fields of the ambient temperature gas flow through the packing. Two different particle Reynolds numbers (100 and 1000) are investigated to validate the concept of the novel reactor model. The successful application of PIV to the inner pores of the bed, delivering reliable snapshot based data, mean velocity and turbulent kinetic energy of the gas flow, shows the potential of this reactor concept also for other optical measurement techniques that allow for the validation of numerical models and simulations of packed bed reactors.

Source: Particuology

DOI: 10.1016/j.partic.2025.11.018

Authors: Christin Velten, Kerstin Hülz, Katharina Zähringer

Institution: Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

Language: English

Topic: Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media

Subfield: Computational Mechanics

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,090