Comparison of modelling approaches for liquid fluidized beds

This study presents a comparison of three promising numerical models for the detailed simulation of liquid–solid fluidized bed. These models differ in their treatment of the solid phase, ranging from treating each particle individually to treating the collection of particles as a continuum. The same laboratory scale column is modelled with each of these models and their results are assessed against experimental data and compared with one another. The particle flow is described in a continuum framework through their average and fluctuation velocities, which are then averaged in time and space to ease the comparison between models. All models agree reasonably well with the experimental data while predicting qualitatively similar but quantitatively different solid flow patterns. The authors recommend the use of computational fluid dynamics with the discrete element method (CFD‐DEM) and the two fluid model with closures from the kinetic theory of granular flow (TFM‐KTGF) for the detailed modelling of liquid–solid fluidized beds, while further studies on the applicability of the multiphase particle in cell model (MP‐PIC) would be needed for this particular application.