Disturbances in the Hydrodynamic Behavior of a Spouted Bed Caused by an Optical Fiber Probe: Experimental and CFD Study

In this work the disturbances in the hydrodynamic behavior caused by the use of an optical fiber probe in a conical-cylindrical spouted bed have been analyzed based on experimental results and CFD simulations using an Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model. The insertion of the probe inside the spouted bed caused a decrease in the fountain height and in the particle velocity for the spout region. The CFD simulations using the Representative Unit Cell model (RUC) drag model and considering the presence of the probe predicted better the experimental data of the particle velocity distribution than the other simulations performed in this work with other drag models.