ARTICLE IN PRESS

Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering Science

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

An advanced EMMS scheme for the prediction of drag coefcient under a

1.2 MWth CFBC isothermal owPart I: Numerical formulation
A. Nikolopoulos a,b,, D. Papafotiou a, N. Nikolopoulos b, P. Grammelis b, E. Kakaras a,b
a

Laboratory of Steam Boilers and Thermal Plants, Mechanical Engineering Department, National Technical University of Athens, Heroon Polytechniou Avenue, 157 80 Zografou,
Athens, Greece
b
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Institute for Solid Fuels Technology and Applications, ARKAT Building, 357-359 Messogeion Ave., Halandri, 15231 Athens, Greece

a r t i c l e in f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 November 2009
Received in revised form
12 March 2010
Accepted 29 March 2010
Available online 9 April 2010

Range and size increment of industrial applications regarding Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB)
technology raise numerous design and operating problems. Further insight into the governing and
complex multiphase ow physics regarding CFB operation can be provided by CFD analysis. However, it
has been proven during the recent years that multi-scale phenomena occurring in CFB reactors cannot
be accurately reproduced by conventional models. Such models are unable to accurately predict the
momentum exchange between the co-existing phases (gas and inert material) when calculating the
drag coefcient. The main reason is that gassolid two-phase ow features spatiotemporal multi-scale
structures, named clusters, as the heterogeneous ow eld is developing. Aiming to evaluate the
particles tendency to aggregate in clusters and describe the effects of this complicated mechanism on
the main characteristics of the induced multiphase ow eld, the advanced Energy Minimization MultiScale (EMMS) analysis is applied. The EMMS scheme comprises of a set of equalities, constraints and a
minimization energy equation, solved for a number of volume fractions and slip velocitys values, using
the optimization software General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS).
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Multiphase ow
Fluidization
Hydrodynamics
Particle
EMMS
Clusters

1. Introduction
Circulating Fluidized Bed technology has been rapidly developing during the last decade. The main commercial interest is the
application of CFB technology in power generation industry. CFB
boilers combine fuel exibility, high efciency and plant availability, whereas they present inherently low NOx emissions and
cost efcient and reliable in situ desulphuration. Furthermore,
CFB reactors have also been used in a wide spectrum of other
applications, such as relatively new applications related to CO2
capture; for example chemical looping and calcium carbonated
looping (Charitos et al., 2009, 2010). The current main efforts are
focused on pilot scale units examining the feasibility of a scale up.
However, due to the scale up of CFB combustion application(an
800 MWe CFBC unit is already under design as reported by Wu
et al., 2004) new challenges arise regarding the accurate
numerical prediction of the hydrodynamic behavior of co-existing
phases, combustion and emissions performance.

 Corresponding author at: Tel.: + 30 2106546637; fax: + 30 2106527539

E-mail addresses: a.nikolopoulos@certh.gr, aristeidhs@gmail.com

(A. Nikolopoulos), dpapaf@gmail.com (D. Papafotiou), niknik@uid.mech.ntua.gr
(N. Nikolopoulos), grammelis@certh.gr (P. Grammelis), ekak@central.ntua.gr
(E. Kakaras).
0009-2509/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ces.2010.03.054

CFD models can play a signicant role in the design optimization. Their inherent ability to meticulously address complicated
issues, such as inert material concentration in bed, fuel mixing
efciency and temperature distribution makes them a very
powerful tool for this scope. Nevertheless, standard models
(Syamlal et al., 1993; Wen and Yu, 1966; Gidaspow, 1994), as
reported in the recent literature (Ge et al., 2008; Wang et al.,
2008a), require quite dense computational grids for the accurate
prediction of the momentum exchange between the phases (gas
and inert material). An alternative would be to enhance the
calculations precision for the momentum exchange coefcient,
under coarse grid conditions. Since the inadequacy to properly
model structures with dimensions smaller than the control
volume is the inaccuracy source in coarse grid calculations, a
way to confront the aforementioned problem is to include
exogenously their effect in the CFD model. The inherent
characteristic of current CFD models to assume homogeneous
conditions in each computing cell has severe drawbacks. As an
example, both the average slip velocity between the phases and
the solids volume fraction are underestimated because of the
respective overestimation of the average gassolid drag force
anen

(Myoh
et al., 2006).
Experimental works (Harris et al., 2002; Zou et al., 2003) and
numerical analysis by Ma et al. (2006) revealed that particles tend
to clog and aggregate under uidized bed conditions forming

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

larger structures called clusters. The driving force of these

mechanisms is the tendency of particles to clog and aggregate in
order to minimize the energy interchanged between the coexisting gas and solid phases. Clusters size varies a lot (Wang and
Li, 2007), whilst it has been proposed that their size is
proportional to the particles diameter. In addition, numerical
results by Zhang and VanderHeyden (2001) have revealed an
impact of gas supercial velocity on conventional drag models
accuracy, implying that clusters size may be affected by gas
velocity. This impact is described and taken into consideration for
the determination of clusters diameter by Wang and Li (2007),
Wang et al. (2008b) and Naren et al. (2007).
Energy Minimization Multi-Scale (EMMS) analysis (Wang et al.,
2008a, b; Zhang et al., 2008; Hartge et al., 2009) is an advanced
methodology, which can be coupled with CFD simulations to
overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of conventional models. A
specic set of ug, us, and eg along with physical constraints denes a
non-linear set of semi-empirical, empirical and analytical equations.
The rst step is to solve this set of equations for a number of values,
requiring the minimization of an objective function which reects
the energy exchange between gas and solid particles inside a
control volume. The second step refers to the coupling between
EMMS analysis and CFD models. It can be easily performed with the
proper interpolation of EMMS results for every set of ug, us, and eg
values, which is calculated within a computational domain.
Generally, spatiotemporal multi-scale structures play a signicant role in the time evolution of various multiphase ows (Liu
et al., 1996). Gas-particle ow in CFBs is also dominated by such
structures (Ge et al., 2008), which in this specic case are the
clusters. The clusters under the operational conditions of a CFB
unit are formed by clogging mechanisms of Geldart B particles.
Geldart (1973) classied powders into four groups with respect to
their uidization properties. His work resulted in a uidization
map identifying four main categories. In Group A belong powders,
which when uidized for a gas supercial velocity equal or
greater than Umf produce a region of non-bubbling uidization,
while for increasing velocity bubbling uidization dominates.
Group B powders produce only bubbling uidization and are used
in CFB units. Very ne and cohesive powders belong in Group C
which cannot be uidized, whilst powders belonging in group D
are large particles mainly producing deep spouting beds.
The highly non-linear and unstable formation of such
structures raises signicant barriers in the accuracy of numerical
simulations for such units. The physical quantity, mostly affected
by the existence of such complex structures in the case of
uidized beds, is the momentum exchange between the gas and
inert material. The complexity of phenomena related to the drag
force acting onto the solid particles and the in-depth understanding of the governing mechanisms are revealed to be a major
problem for the accurate modeling of industrial CFB applications
(Sundaresan 2000; Ge et al., 2008).
Conventional drag models as described by Syamlal and OBrein
(Syamlal et al., 1993), Wen and Yu (1966) or Gidaspows (Yuan and
Gidaspow, 1990) assume homogeneous conditions inside a control
volume, which is far from reality. The main reason is that the
formation of clusters is a controlling parameter for the governing
physics of such complex two-phase ow system. Thus, this
inherent characteristic of the aforementioned models makes them
inappropriate for the accurate modeling of multi-scale (Ge et al.,
2008) structures inside a CFB. In addition, the numerical error is
considerable as stated by Wang et al. (2008a) and Hartge et al.
(2009) and can only be confronted with very dense computational
grids (Ge et al., 2008; Zhang and VanderHeyden, 2001). Nevertheless, the simulation of CFB technology applications especially
for combustors has to overcome a series of problems. Very dense
numerical grids, which are sufcient enough for the accurate

4081

representation of the ow eld, cannot be implemented in such

large scale installations, due to the existing limitations in the
affordable computational cost. Therefore, conventional drag models may be regarded as insufcient for the numerical simulations of
such state of the art large scale units (Wu et al., 2004). However,
CFD modeling of CFBs operation can become a powerful tool for
large scale units, if more advanced models representing and
describing in an efcient way the heterogeneity of the ow eld
are incorporated in the numerical calculations.
The present work establishes an advanced model, describing
the effect of heterogeneity mechanisms on the evolution of the
phenomenon via the heterogeneity index Hd and over a wide range
of eg values (0.55o eg o0.9997). In contrast to previously
published works (Wang et al., 2008a, b; Wang and Li 2007; Naren
et al., 2007), different assumptions are followed for the clusters
diameter evolution and clusters acceleration. Likewise, values with
a better physical meaning are predicted for the main governing
variables, such as the energy exchange and the relevant forces
acting on the co-existing phases. Finally, the majority of research
works (Chalermsinsuwan et al., 2009a, b; Naren et al., 2007; Wang,
2008; Wang and Li, 2007; Yan et al., 2002; Zhang et al., 2008) refer
to Geldart A particles, whereas the present work along with Wang
et al. (2008a) focus on Geldart B particles aggregation.

2. EMMS scheme formulation

The numerical results of the present EMMS scheme are
referring to the operational conditions of the 1.2 MWth CFBC
investigated by Leithner et al. (1993). However, the adopted
equations and constraints can be utilized for every set of CFBs
boundary and operating conditions. Table 1 presents the main
physical properties of the investigated multiphase ow.
As the multiphase ow under CFB conditions is locally
heterogeneous (Wang et al., 2008a) various regions can be
identied inside a control volume. Regions of the control volume
in which particles have an elevated volume fraction of solid phase
form the dense phase of the cell (clusters). On the other hand, all
solid particles that are rather homogenously dispersed inside the
gas phase represent the dilute phase. Although the two phases are
clearly dened, there are cases that the particles inside a control
volume could not be grouped in one of the aforementioned
phases, i.e. too sparse to be part of the dense phase and too dense
to be part of dilute phase. Fig. 1 represents the various regions
with the corresponding main velocities, which can be found in
such a two-phase ow system, similar to the one in a CFB unit.
Therefore, the volume percentage of particles packed into
structures and resembling clusters is considered as the dense
phase. The remaining cell volume constitutes the dilute phase.
Generally, the drag force acting on the solid particles inside the
dense phase cannot be calculated by the equation developed by
Wen and Yu et al. (1966), since it is mainly applicable for dilute
particle phases. On the contrary, dilute phase is assumed to be
consisted of discrete, uniformly dispersed particles of uniform
size (dp), which is in consistency with the approach of Naren et al.
(2007). Table 2 summarizes important closure equations for each
ow phase (Wang et al., 2008a).
Table 1.
Gas and solid properties.
Particle diameter
Particle density
Gas density
Gas viscosity
Minimum uidization voidage (emf)

260 mm
2600 kg/m3
0.3068 kg/m3
4.2277  105 kg/(ms)
0.55

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

Fig. 1. Flow phases inside a control volume (Dong et al., 2008).

Table 2.
EMMS closure equations.
Dense phase

Dilute phase

Inter-phase

Cdf Cd0f ef 4:65

Cdc Cd0 cec 4:65

Effective drag coefcient

Cdc Cd0 ec 4:65

Standard drag coefcient

Cd0c

Characteristic Reynolds number

r dp
Rec mg jUsc j
g
ec Upc
Usc Uc  1
ec

Supercial slip velocity

Drag force per particle or cluster
Numbers of particles or clusters in unit volume

24
Rec

Fc Cdc
mc

Re3:6
0:313
c

pdp rg
4

3
f 1ec
3
f
rg Usc jUsc j Cdi
U jU j f 1ec rs rg g ac
C
4 dc dp
4
dcl rg si si
1

Cdf

1ef rg
dp

Usf jUsf j

rg
1ec rg
f
U jU j Cdc
Usc jUsc j
C
dp
1f di dcl si si

Additionally, mass conservation for the uid, the particles and

the denition of mean voidage in the control volume are given by
Uf 1f Uc f ug eg

Upf 1f Upc f us 1eg

eg f ec 1f ef

The formation and dynamic evolution of particle clusters do

not result in a constant value of local solid volume fraction, but in
uctuations around its average value. An expression for the
voidage of the dense phase can be reached, based on the thorough
analysis by Wang et al. (2008a). In this analysis, clusters are
dened as any particle aggregate whose local instantaneous solid

Ref

rg dp
mg

Re3:6
0:313
f

jUsf j
eU

Usc jUsc j

Ff Cdf
mf

pdp 2 rg

4 2 Usf jUsf j
1f 1ef

pdp 3 =6

Cd0i

24
Rei

Rei

rg dcl
mg

Re3:6
0:313
i

jUsi j


ef Upc
Usi 1f Uf  1
ec
Fi Cdi pd4cl
mi

rg
2

Usi jUsi j

pdcl 3 =6

concentration is greater than the time-mean local solid concentration by at least n times its standard deviation se. Dense phase
voidages standard deviation is calculated by (Wang et al., 2008a)
s
1es 4
se es
7
1 4es 4es 2 4es 3 es 4

ec is representing the volume fraction of gas inside the cluster

and is approximated by the following equation:
ec eg nse

24
Ref

f pf
Usf Uf  1
ef

f 1ec
pdp 3 =6

Moreover, the force balance for the clusters and dilute phase in
a unit volume of the suspension is given by Eqs. (1) and (2),
respectively, whilst Eq. (3) represents the pressure drop balance
between the clusters and the dilute phase (Wang et al., 2008a;
Yang et al., 2003)

3
1f 1ec
rg Usf jUsf j 1f 1ef rs rg g af
C
4 df
dp

Cd0f

The value of n can be chosen with some degree of arbitrariness

(Wang et al., 2008a). In the present work, a value of n3 was
selected (Soong et al., 1994, 1995). However, a value of n 2 was
adopted by Tuzla et al. (1998), Sharma et al. (2000), and Liu
(2005), while Gu and Chen (1998) assumed a value of n 2.5 and
Yan et al. (2002), Manyele et al. (2002) and Qi et al. (2005)
assumed a value of n 1. In contrast to these researchers, Wang
and Li (2007) dened ec as a free variable.
Another important scalar in EMMS scheme is the cluster
diameter. Experimental (Gu and Chen, 1998; Harris et al., 2002;
Zou et al., 2003) or theoretical work yields expressions for the
calculation of clusters diameter. However, analytic equations for
Geldart B particles such as the one reported by Wang and Li
(2007) or Naren et al. (2007) are the only well-established
relations since the respective empirical equations are mainly fed
with experimental data concerning Geldart A particles. Nevertheless, in the work of Wang and Li (2007) the use of the
aforementioned analytic expression results in an overestimation

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

of the clusters volume fraction (f0.4) in the dilute region

(voidage 40.99). In order to overcome this problem, the present
work adopted an empirical equation for clusters diameter
proposed by Gu and Chen (1998).
The latter empirical equation provides almost identical results
for the clusters diameter as the one by Harris et al. (2002), as
stated by Wang (2008) and Harris et al. (2002) using data mainly
for Geldart A particles and Geldart B particles proposed an
arithmetic expression for the clusters diameter. However, the
aforementioned expression for solid volume fraction es less than
0.01, predicts that the clusters diameter is smaller than the
diameter of a single particle (dcl odp), whereas the predicted
clusters diameter is negative for solid volume fraction es greater
than 0.44 (es 40.44). These problems are confronted using Gu and
Chens (1998) correlation (Eq. (9)), which provides almost
identical results for the clusters diameter as the one by Harris
et al. (2002)
dcl dp 0:02710dp es 32es 6

Moreover, the following constraints (Eqs. (10)(13)) which

represent the corresponding physical limits of the various
variables, as far as the clusters and/or dilute region are concerned,
were added in the aforementioned set of equations:

emf r ec

10

(Wang and Li, 2007; Naren et al., 2007; Yang et al., 2003)

ef r0:9997

11

(Wang et al., 2008b; Wang and Li, 2007; Naren et al., 2007;
Yang et al., 2003)

ec o eg o ef

12

The present paper introduces the following constraint applicable to the slip velocity in the dilute phase. Slip velocity is dened
as the difference of gas and particles velocity. Constraint (13),
describes the fact that a single particle in a dilute phase cannot
have a slip velocity greater than its corresponding terminal one.
The validity of this expression is conrmed by the numerical
results, described in the following paragraphs:
Usf =ef o Ut

13

The latter constraint refers to the slip velocity of the dilute

phase and is not valid for dense phases (Naren et al., 2007). As
Kunii and Levenspiel (1991) denote, terminal velocity is an
exponential function of the respective structure diameter. Therefore, large structures like clusters have a terminal velocity
considerably greater than the terminal velocity of sole particles
(Yerushalmi et al., 1976).
The system of all the above equations can be solved by the
minimization of the energy Nst, which is interchanged between
gas and solid particles for the suspension and transportation of
the particles within a cell (Wang et al., 2008a; Naren et al., 2007):




1
14
mf Ff Uf mc Fc Uc mi Fi Uf 1f -minimum
Nst 
1eg rs

linear optimization mathematical problem (Eqs. (1)(6), (8)(14)),

for any triplet of ug, us and eg, and for the operational conditions of
the unit selected for modeling (Leithner et al., 1993). This
program is a high-level modeling program for system optimization, described by a number of equalities and/or inequalities
constraints.
However, the present results revealed that Hd is a function
both of eg and the absolute velocity difference of the gas and solid
and gas phase jug us j, which is also conrmed by Zhang et al.
(2008). Plotting the values of Hd as a function of eg for a specic
set of values (ug 2.5 m/s, us 1 m/s and uslip 1.5 m/s), distributions as the one depicted in Fig. 2 are predicted. Each distribution
can be split up in three main areas A, B and C. Area A refers to
dilute conditions (0.95o eg o e*), while area B to rather denser
conditions (0.82 o eg o0.95). The physical difference between
areas A and B is small. Nevertheless these areas were examined
separately since the numerical tting of the EMMS results was
conducted separately for these two areas, in order to achieve a
better accuracy. In area C, on the other hand, clusters voidage
stops increasing and remains constant and equal to emf.
For each of these areas, different mathematical expressions
Hd f juslip j, eg are used for their interpolation. Area A is
mathematically bounded by 0:95 r eg r e , where e* denotes the
limiting value of eg above which Hd is equal to 1. The following
expression of Hd is used for this area:
Hd

4
X

10ai 1000eg 0:95

Area B is mathematically bounded by 0:82 r eg r 0:95, and the

following expression is used:
Hd

4
X

ai eg i

18

i1

whilst area C mathematically is bounded by emf 0:55 r

eg r0:82, and expressed by

Hd

6
X

ai eg i

19

i1

It should also be mentioned that since the problem was solved

for a specic value of uslip, a linear interpolation method is used
for obtaining the corresponding value of Hd for every slip velocity
w

uslip
uslip

20

uslip
u
slip

Hd uslip 1wHd uslip

wHd u
slip

FWen,Yu
FEmms

15

16

The commercial General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS,

http://www.gams.com) package was selected to solve the non-

21

Although linear interpolation is the least accurate approach, it

is the most computationally efcient. Additionally, more accurate

whereas the heterogeneity index is dened as the ratio of the

drag force calculated by the conventional model of Wen and
Yu (1966) to the respective force calculated by the proposed
EMMS scheme:
Hd

17

i1

Concluding, the correlation of the corrected estimation of the

drag force, based on the EMMS model is dened as
FEMMS eg f 1ec g ac 1f 1ef g af rs rg

4083

Fig. 2. The Hd(eg) function for uslip 1.5 m/s.

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

interpolation schemes (Lagrange polynomials and splines) were

used with no signicant improvement in interpolation accuracy.
Moreover, the number of slip velocities functions as they were
calculated by GAMS was found adequate for an accurate
calculation of Hd.
3. Description of the arithmetic results
The presented values in the following paragraphs are indicative for the specic operational conditions under which the
numerical results were derived and, therefore, cannot be regarded
as universal for any case.
All EMMS parameters are calculated for various slip velocities
and a wide range of control volume voidage (eg). The effects of
ow heterogeneity is evident for a region expanding from eg
maximum value of e* (the dilute limit above which Hd 1), close
to the dilute end area, as well as through A, B and C areas and
ending at the dense end or bubbling end, which is equal to around
eg emf 0.55. The passing from the dilute limit to the aforementioned three different areas refers to the gradual densication of
control volume, beginning from a dilute state (e*) and nishing at
a state of elevated solid particles volume percentage.
In general, the formation of dense ow phase is controlled by
two separate mechanisms. On one hand, it is the clusters mass
enlargement through the addition of new particles followed by
the increment of their volume, without any further densication
of the dense phase; this mechanism can be characterized as
extensive cluster growth. On the other hand, the addition of new
particles in the control volume can alternatively lead to denser
clusters without any change in clusters size. This will be achieved
if new particles cause a rearrangement of the interior of the dense
phase, reaching a more compact set of solid particles. This pattern
can be characterized as intensive cluster growth. These two
different mechanisms can be regarded as the main causes due
to which clusters are increasing in mass. The understanding of
which of the two patterns dominate the formation of a cluster
plays a signicant role in the physical interpretation of the
numerical results deriving by EMMS.
In advance, it must be denoted that intensive growth mechanism is dominant for areas A and B, whereas clusters grow only
extensively in area C. Moreover, the importance of the physical
constraint mathematically expressed by Eq. (10) should be
underlined, since it differentiates area B from area C. A critical
value of eg equal to around 0.82 is predicted, separating area B
from area C and taking into account that emf is equal to 0.55 for
the geometrical characteristics of the particles investigated in the
present paper. A more thorough and meticulous analysis for each
area is provided below.

(1966) correlation predictions coincide with those by EMMS

analysis.
From a physical point of view, the ow regime in this region is
rather sparse and the overall slip velocity inside the control
volume is high or comparable to the corresponding terminal
velocity. Additionally, structures such as clusters cannot be
developed in adequate quantities in order to increase the slip
velocity of the dense phase. Since the overall slip velocity is a
weighted average of the corresponding values of the two coexisting phases (gas and inert material), the aforementioned
mechanism results in a high slip velocity for the dilute phase.
Thus, the constraint, dened by Eq. (11), cannot be satised, and it
was not included in the implementation of the model for this
region. This exclusion does not lack of physical interpretation,
whereas the aforementioned constraint is mostly valid only for
fully developed ows. Moreover, a sharp transition for Hd can be
seen in the extremely dilute area (0.994o eg o0.995). It should be
underlined that all measures monitored are continuous around
the critical point of eg e*, while their derivatives with respect to
eg are discontinuous. This transition has also been conrmed by
Zhang et al. (2008). Nevertheless, in this work, e* is considered as
a function of uslip (Fig. 3) and not constant as assumed by Wang
and Li (2007). e* was tted with respect to overall uslip.
Moving within this area towards denser ows and up to
eg 0.95, the present model predicts a steadily rising volume
fraction of cluster phase (Fig. 4). Such high values of f, predicted
also by Wang and Li (2007) may not realistically represent the
governing physics, since the ow is rather dilute in order to have
such big percentage of its volume occupied by clusters. However,
as Wang and Li (2007) correctly pointed out, in this region ow
heterogeneity does exist but instead of being attributed to
particles clustering mechanism, it can be attributed to the
interaction of the gas phase with the moderate sparsely
scattered solid particles. EMMS scheme integrates such
phenomena caused by the neighboring of particles, but
arithmetically encounters them as structures resembling clusters.
Regarding the gas phase characteristics outside the cluster
structure, Fig. 5, it is evident that the increase of clusters volume
fraction leads the gas phase to ow around the clusters than to
penetrate into them. Thus, the gas phase velocity outside the
cluster uf is increasing and simultaneously the corresponding one
inside the cluster uc (Fig. 6) is decreasing. It should be denoted
that uf (Fig. 5) and uc (Fig. 6) in the dilute end region tend to the
overall gas velocity (ug 2 m/s) and the gas dominates over the
particles. Hence, for very dilute phases (eg close to e*), gas velocity
is not considerably affected by the low inertia of particles.
Additionally the slip velocity of clusters interface usi,
around the dilute end region (e*) is increasing rapidly (from 1.0

3.1. Characteristics of area A

In this area, mathematically bounded by the inequality
0.95o eg o e*, the control volume is considered to be very dilute
in particles. This ow characteristic decreases the robustness of
the solving procedure and a good initialization of the solution was
found to be of great importance. Not only, was the solver
initialized from the solution of the previous triplet (eg,ug,us), but
also a very small calculation step of eg (deg 0.000125) was
adopted. It is noticeable that dilute ow conditions (area A)
represent a large proportion of a typical CFB risers ow eld.
Hence, proper modeling of the respective drag coefcient within
this region is very important for the overall accuracy of the CFD
model. The heterogeneity index Hd varies signicantly, whilst it
equals to one for extremely high values of eg (approximately
eg 40.994). In this region where f 0 (Fig. 4, eg Z e*), Wen and Yus

Fig. 3. The Hd(eg) function for uslip 1.5 m/s (zoom in the dilute region).

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

Fig. 4. Dense phase volume percentage (f).

Fig. 7. Real slip velocity of inter-phase usi.

Fig. 5. Gas velocity within dilute phase.

Fig. 8. Particles velocity in dilute phase.

uc (m/sec)

1.5

1
Area
B

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

Area
A
0.5
Dilute end

Dense end
0.6

Area
B

Turning point

Area
C

0.85

0.9

4085

0.95

Fig. 6. Gas velocity within dense phase.

to 1.2 m/s) with the increase of the clusters volume fraction. It

reaches an almost constant value of 20% higher than uslip (Fig. 7),
since the development of clusters contributes to the development
of larger slip velocities.
The corresponding particle phase outside the cluster structure
is approximately equal to uf, since the gas phase drifts the particle
one since within area A region is characterized by extremely small
particle phase volume fraction (Fig. 8).

As far as the particle velocity inside the cluster (upc) is

concerned, this remains almost constant equal to us 1 m/s and
thus Fig. 9 presenting the slip velocity of gas and particles phases
inside the cluster is of the same trend as indicated in Fig. 6.
Therefore, the particle phase velocity (upc) decelerates the gas one
as the volume fraction of the particle phase is increasing.
Since particle aggregation mechanism is not very dominant
within region A, energy exchange per unit of particle mass (Nst) is
initially very large and close to e* as illustrated in Fig. 10.
However, since this variable expresses the energy exchange
between gas and particles reduced to the overall particle mass,
Nst decreases as dense phase is growing. In addition, dilute phase
acceleration (af + g) is almost equal to zero, as predicted by Wang
and Li (2007). On the other hand, the particles acceleration inside
the cluster is having the same trend with that of energy exchange
due to the decrease of slip velocity as depicted in Fig. 9 and the
decrease of the relative force between the phases (Table 2.). It is of
importance to address that following the aforementioned
approximations for the EMMS scheme the calculated values of
ac (Fig. 11) have a better physical interpretation than the
corresponding one by Wang and Li (2007).

3.2. Characteristics of area B

In area B, the same mechanisms governing area A are present.
Since particles clustering mechanism is higher, the energy
interchange reduced to the overall particle mass (Nst) is very
low (Fig. 10). An increase of solid concentration in a control

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

Fig. 9. Real and supercial slip velocity within dense phase.

Fig. 12. Clusters diameter evolution.

Following area A, the present developed model predicts better

values of ac in terms of acceleration from a physical point of view
than Wang and Li (2007) and thus small values for Nst are
predicted. To sum up, there is not a signicant physical distinction
between areas A and B. However, from an arithmetic point of
view, it is more efcient and numerically more accurate than the
description of Hd by different polynomial ttings for each range of
values.
3.3. Characteristics of area c

Fig. 10. Energy exchange between phases (Nst).

Fig. 11. Dilute and dense phase acceleration.

volume implies an increase in the volume fraction of the dense

phase. In addition, clusters diameter, as it is shown in Fig. 12, does
not increase much and the intensive growth of clusters still
remains the dominant mechanism of clusters enlargement.
Similarly to area A, the slip velocity of clusters (usi) is larger
than the overall slip velocity uslip (Fig. 7). However, slip velocity
inside dilute and dense phases (usf and usc, respectively, Fig. 9) is
rather small. The gas domination over the particle phase
characteristics outside the cluster structure is again predicted as
explained in area A. On the other hand inside the clusters (within
area B), the respective domination of particles over the gas phase
is much further enhanced than in area A, as it is shown in Fig. 9
(0.82 o eg o0.95, uc upc and upf uf).

Area Cs bounds are described by a maximum value of eg equal

to 0.82 and minimum value of emf, for which constraint described
by Eq. (10), also used by Wang and Li (2007) as well as by Yang
et al. (2003) is valid. This was found to have a signicant impact
on EMMS scheme results. Its signicance relies on the prevention
of clusters further densication, because their voidage (ec) cannot
be smaller than the minimum uidization voidage (emf). Thus,
clusters in area C increase in mass only due to their respective
diameter increase since no further density enhancement can be
achieved. Dense phase volume fraction curve (Fig. 4), presents an
increase in its slope at the turning point from area B to C. Since the
solids volume fraction in the dense ow region cannot be further
increased, the added mass in the control volume (higher
es 1  eg) leads to a larger increase of the volume occupied by
the dense ow phase. Such a tendency, also predicted by Wang
and Li (2007), imposes an upper limit of Hd for every value of slip
velocity. The maximum value of the heterogeneity index is
spotted in the turning point, reecting the overall minimum of
Nst curve (Fig. 10) at the same spot.
As far as the respective gas velocity in dilute phase (uf) is
concerned, there is an increase in its magnitude (Fig. 5), since the
available free area for the gas phase is reducing because of the
respective increase of dense phase volume fraction (Fig. 4).
Following the increase of gas phase velocity, the dispersed
particles drift is increasing their velocity (Fig. 8). The particles
velocity inside the clusters (upc) again in this area is not altered
with a velocity magnitude equal to around 1 m/s.
For larger particle concentration (eg o0.59 or es 40.41), the
ow should resemble the emulsion phase of bubbling uidization
(Yang et al., 2003). This tendency is also predicted by the
developed EMMS model. It is achieved numerically through the
empirical Eq. (9) for the diameter of clusters, which implies a
monotonically increase of clusters diameter as a function of es. As
a matter of fact, this equation predicts clusters with an unnatural
size of 20 cm for great values of es 0.45. In the recent literature,
such empirical equations (Eq. (9)) describing the evolution of
clusters diameter (Gu and Chen 1998; Harris et al., 2002; Zou

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A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

et al., 2003) were developed through experimental campaigns

with a focus on the ow region characterized by eg 40.7.
Due to the increase of clusters diameter (Fig. 12), gas phase is
penetrating into clusters, increasing the slip velocity magnitude,
usc, between the phases (Fig. 9). As a result, cluster as a single
structure is no longer valid (Fig. 13) and its slip velocity dened at
its interface is decreasing (Fig. 7).
Another result of clusters collapse as a single structure is
that Nst increases since the slip velocity magnitude between the
phases is increasing. At the same time, ac (Fig. 11) increases. In the
intensively dense region, where eg emf, uf and uc are equal to the
overall gas velocity ug, whilst the same is observed for the
particles velocity (upf upc us). Moreover, the slip velocity of
clusters (usi) equals to the overall slip velocity. At this point the
EMMS scheme indicates that a regime of ow homogeneity inside
the control volume is reached.
The presented evolution of physical mechanisms governing the
size and characteristics of clusters are in a good agreement with
relevant observations and predictions by other researchers in the
recent literature, despite the stiff expression of dcl adopted in the
present work. It should be mentioned that Wang and Li (2007)
also predicted the value of Hd equal to unity at that particular
point of eg, conrming the results of the present work.

3.4. Slip velocity effect

The slip velocity between the gas and the particle phase is also
affecting EMMS results. In Fig. 14 the energy exchange between

Fig. 13. Clusters single structure collapse.

phases (Nst) is plotted against uslip for various volume fractions of

solid phase. It is clear that small values of slip velocity
accommodate the minimization of the energy exchange, whilst
increased slip velocities render cluster structures relatively
unstable. The correlation depicted in Fig. 14 reveals that Hd
(high Nst implies small Hd) and uslip are inversely proportional.
These results were also conrmed by Zhang and VanderHeyden
(2001), who modeled a CFB unit using a conventional drag model
in a relatively dense grid, under various operational conditions.

4. Conclusions
An EMMS scheme was developed for the investigation of the
multi-scale structures induced in a CFBs multiphase ow. The
described model approximation comprises of a numerical set of
equality and inequality constraints with a physical interpretation
and an objective function referring to the energy exchange
between ow phases. The numerical set was developed using
empirical, semi-empirical and analytical equations coupled with
physical constraints. The physical interpretation and importance
of these constraints was illustrated, since the governing physics
strongly affect clusters formation mechanisms. Albeit an empirical equation for clusters diameter was implemented in order to
simplify the EMMS matrix solution, the numerical results within
the dense phase indicated that the developed model efciently
captured the inhomogeneous physical mechanisms governing the
induced ow eld. Moreover, the consideration of acceleration of
each phase as a free variable with the prescribed constraints
adopted in the present work predicted more reasonable results for
the energy exchange between the co-existing phases and the
relevant acceleration of solid particles in contrast to other works.
The developed model predicted more realistic values for the
clusters volume fraction (f) in comparison with the work of Wang
and Li (2007) as concerns the dilute region of area A. Nevertheless
the EMMS model takes into account the effect of particle
neighboring on the momentum exchange coefcient between
the phases in this area in an implicit manner. Therefore, an
extended experimental and numerical investigation on this area
should be conducted, which may lead to an alternation of EMMS
model approximation for this area.
From a qualitative point of view, EMMS results agreed well
with other available data in the recent literature, whilst heterogeneity index (Hd) quantifying the ow heterogeneity of each
control volume was proved to be only a function of uslip and eg.
Finally, a proper interpolation scheme for the most signicant
parameters describing the time evolution of this complex
phenomenon was applied in order to contribute to a straightforward coupling of EMMS scheme with a CFD Eulerian TFM code.

Notation
ac
af
CDc
CDf
CDi
dp
dcl

eg
es
Fig. 14. The objective function (W/kg).

4087

acceleration of particles in dense phase (m/s2)

acceleration of particles in dilute phase (m/s2)
effective drag coefcient in the dense phase
(dimensionless)
effective drag coefcient in the dilute phase
(dimensionless)
effective drag coefcient in the inter-phase
(dimensionless)
particle diameter (m)
cluster diameter (m)
voidage (m3 of gas/m3 in control volume)
fraction of particles (m3 of particles/m3 in control
volume)

ARTICLE IN PRESS
4088

ec
ef
emf
f
F
g
Hd
mc
mf
mi
n
Nst
ug
us
uslip
uslip +
uslip 
Uc
Uf
Usc
Usf
Usi
Upc
Upf
Ut

mg
rg
rs
se

A. Nikolopoulos et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 65 (2010) 40804088

voidage in dense volume (m3 of gas/m3 of dense phase)

voidage in dilute volume (m3 of gas/m3 of dilute phase)
voidage at minimum uidization
clusters volume fraction (m3 of clusters/m3 in control
volume)
drag force (N)
gravitational acceleration (  9.81 m/s2)
heterogeneity index (dimensionless)
number of particles inside clusters per unit volume
(dimensionless)
number of particles in the dilute phase per unit volume
(dimensionless)
number of cluster in control volume per unit volume
(dimensionless)
constant in the equation of ec (dimensionless)
energy interchanged between ow phases (W/kg)
real gas velocity of gas in control volume (m/s)
real particles velocity in control volume (m/s)
real slip velocity in control volume (m/s)
next calculated value of real slip velocity in control
volume (m/s) via GAMS
previous calculated value of real slip velocity in control
volume (m/s) via GAMS
supercial gas velocity in dense phase (m/s)
supercial gas velocity in dilute phase (m/s)
supercial slip velocity in dense phase (m/s)
supercial slip velocity in dilute phase (m/s)
supercial slip velocity in interphase (m/s)
supercial particle velocity in dense phase (m/s)
supercial particle velocity in dilute phase (m/s)
terminal velocity (m/s)
momentum exchange coefcient (kg/m3 s)
gas dynamic viscosity (kg/m s2)
gas density (kg/m3)
particle density (kg/m3)
dense phase voidages standard deviation
(dimensionless)

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