Fluidized beds, while becoming fairly outdated, are still a perfectly viable method of

purifying a product stream. The bed packing material can be used to remove impurities. The
fluidized bed experiment makes use of many different pieces of equipment, such as pipes, valves,
and rotameters, etc, all of which are readily available in the industry. Obviously, this will allow
the company to increase profits by producing a higher quality product which will dramatically
raise profits. Because of this, it is important to understand many different types of purification
techniques.
In this experiment, the attempt will be made, to accurately describe fluid flow phenomenon
using water as the fluid, and various packing material inside of several glass tubes. Specifically,
it should be possible to calculate critical values for velocity. Also, there is a relationship between
volumes of solid, liquid, and gas as compared to the total volume.

Objectives
There are three values which need to be calculated for this experiment (for various fluidized
beds):
1. Minimum Fluidization Velocity
2. Terminal Velocity
3. Void Fraction