Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144

www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec

Parametric study of fine particle fluidization under mechanical vibration

Chunbao Xu 1, Jesse Zhu *
Particle Technology Research Centre, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering The University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5B9

Received 28 July 2004; received in revised form 20 September 2005; accepted 13 October 2005
Available online 28 November 2005

Abstract

Investigations into the effects of vibration on fluidization of fine particles (4.8 – 216 Am average in size) show that the fluidization quality of
fine particles can be enhanced under mechanical vibration, leading to larger bed pressure drops at low superficial gas velocities and lower values
of u mf. The effectiveness of vibration on improving fluidization is strongly dependent on the properties (Geldart particle type, size-distribution and
shape) of the primary particles used and the vibration parameters (frequency, amplitude and angle) applied. The possible roles of mechanical
vibration in fine particle fluidization have been studied with respect to bed voidage, pressure drop, agglomeration, and tensile strength of particle
bed. Vibration is found to significantly reduce both the average size and the segregation of agglomerates in the bed, thus improving the fluidization
quality of cohesive particles. Also, vibration can dramatically reduce the tensile strength of the particle bed. Obviously, vibration is an effective
means to overcome the interparticle forces of fine powders in fluidization and enhance their fluidization quality.
D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fluidization; Fluidization quality; Fine particles; Mechanical vibration; Tensile strength; Particle agglomeration; Particle shape

1. Introduction
Fluidization is a widely used process for powder handling in
industry because of the favourable gas –solid and solid – solid
contacting efficiencies. However, fine particles smaller than
about 35 Am in size are very cohesive and are generally
believed to be not suitable for fluidization due to the strong
interparticle forces [1,2]. Such fine particles are classified as
Geldart group C (cohesive) particles [3]. Group C particles tend
to cling to each other as a consequence of the interparticle
forces and therefore form channels and agglomerates in
fluidization, which often lead to poor fluidization or even
complete de-fluidization.
Mechanical vibration has proved to be an effective means
for improving the fluidization of cohesive particles [4 –8].
Vibration prevents the solids from channelling and seriously
agglomerating by supplying the bed with the energy required to
overcome the interparticle forces. With the application of the
vibration, the fluidization quality, the gas – solid contact
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 519 661 3807.
E-mail address: jzhu@uwo.ca (J. Zhu).
1
Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering, Lakehead Univer-
sity, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, P7B 5E1.
0032-5910/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2005.10.002
efficiency and the efficiency of heat and mass transfer can be
significantly improved. Using a self-developed vibro-fluidized
bed, Mori et al. [4] found that particles smaller than 24 Am that
are not fluidizable under non-vibrated conditions could be
completely fluidized under vibration (50 Hz/0.5 mm) at a gas
velocity less than 4.5 cm/s, giving appreciable bed expansion.
According to Dutta and Dullea [9], when applying vibration to
cohesive powders, improved fluidization quality was observed
by increased bed pressure drop and bed expansion and
decreased elutriation. As a result, vibro-fluidized beds are
now used in industries for handling particulate materials such
as fluidization, mixing, granulation, drying, coating, etc.
[10,11].
Despite many previous studies on the effect of mechanical
vibration, a comprehensive and parametric investigation on the
fluidization behaviour of fine particles under vibration is still
not available in the literature. Therefore, in the present work,
the effects of vibration on the fluidization of a wide range of
fine particles including Al2O3, TiO2, CaCO3 and glass beads,
4.8– 216 Am in average size, are studied with respect to bed
pressure drop, bed expansion ratio, agglomeration of the fine
particles, and tensile strength of bed materials. Influencing
factors controlling the performance of vibration, including
properties of primary particles and vibration parameters, and
136 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144
the possible roles of vibration in fine particle fluidization are
extensively discussed.
2. Experimental
The experimental setup is illustrated in Fig. 1, consisting of
a fluidized bed column made of Plexiglas (100 mm i.d. and
1000 mm tall), a vibration generation system, a data acquisition
system with LabVIEW, and a gas flow control system.
Compressed air stripped of trace humidity through a fixed
bed of silica gel is used as the fluidizing gas, with the flow rate
controlled by a series of rotameters (Omega Engineering Inc.)
and a digital mass flow controller (Fathom Technologies). All
the flowmeters are carefully calibrated with a Wet Test Meter
(GCA/Precision Scientific). A polyethylene porous plate (15 –
45 Am pore size, 30% pore volume and 6.4 mm thick) serves as
the gas distributor. It has been measured that for all types of
particles studied, the grid pressure drop is larger than 30% of
the bed pressure drop at a superficial gas velocity at 2 cm/s,
ensuring a uniformly distributed fluidizing gas in the bed.
Pressure drops across the whole bed are obtained with a
differential pressure transducer. Mechanical vibration is gener-
ated by a pair of vibrators mounted opposite one another on the
two sides of a steel-made base and driven by an ABB inverter
with a vibration frequency ( f) varying from 0 to 50 Hz. By
changing the unbalanced weights of the vibrator, various
amplitudes (A) between 0 and 3 mm (depending on the
frequency used) can be obtained. The amplitude of the
vibration base is measured using a quartz shear ICP\
accelerometer (Dalimar Instruments Inc.) with the sensitivity
of 10.09 mV/m/s2 at 100 Hz. The vibration angle or direction
can also be varied within 0 – 90- through adjusting the
mounting angles of the vibro-motors on the vibration base,
where the angle of 0- corresponds to horizontal vibration and
90- the vertical vibration.
Earlier work such as Chen et al. [12], has demonstrated that
the effectiveness of mechanical vibration for improving the
Gas Outlet
to Bag Filter Compressed Air
Silica Gel
Column
Fluidized Bed
Pressure
Transducer
Column
Rotameter
Data Acqusition
System
Mass-flow
Controller
Piezoelectric
Accelerometer Vibrator
Inverter
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental apparatus.
fluidization state of fine particles reduces greatly as the static
bed height (L 0) increases, due to the dissipation of the vibration
energy along the bed height. Consequently, many previous
studies on the vibration-assisted fine particle fluidization have
employed a small value of the static bed height [8,13]. In the
present study, the static bed height is fixed to about 10 cm for
all experiments, with L 0 / D å 1.0, so as to avoid the problem
related to dissipation. In addition, for every experimental run,
the particle bed is loosened with a flow of air at 2.0 cm/s for
10– 20 min prior to the fluidization experiments. During the
bed-loosening process as well as the subsequent fluidization
process, the entrained fines are returned to the bed, to prevent
the lowering of the static bed height due to possible particle
carryover. The entrained fines during the experiments are
collected by a bag filter, made of densely woven cloth, placed
externally right above the free board in a cylindrical column,
and returned manually to the bed by gently tapping the column
upon the completion of the bed-loosening process or in about
every 5 min during the fluidization. Then, with decreasing gas
velocity (u g), pressure drops across the whole bed (DP) and the
bed height (L) are measured simultaneously. When vibration is
applied to the bed, the differential pressure signals measured
across the particle bed fluctuate due to the influence of the
vibration. This fluctuation strongly depends on the vibration
parameters (frequency, amplitude and direction). To reduce the
negative effects of the signal fluctuation and ensure enough
quantities of data for acquiring accurate average bed pressure
drop, the pressure signals are sampled by a data acquisition
system with LabVIEW at a frequency of 1000, much higher
than the vibration frequency applied to the particle bed, and
over long enough sampling period (60 –120 s).
To assess the fluidization quality, the normalized bed
pressure drop is adopted. It is defined as the ratio of the
measured pressure drops across the whole bed (DP) to the
normal pressure caused by particle weight (m sg / S), where m s
denotes the weight of solids in the bed and S the cross-sectional
area of the fluidization column. When the entire bed is
fluidized, the normalized pressure drop, DP / (m sg / S), should
attain unity and remain stable thereafter even if the gas velocity
further increases, provided that the bed is completely fluidized.
Also worth mentioning is that in this study, the average bed
voidage (( b) rather than the bed expansion ratio (convention-
ally used by other researchers) is used in this study to
characterize the bed expansion in fluidization for the following
two reasons: (1) ( b is calculated from the bed height data, thus
directly related to the bed expansion ratio, and (2) more
importantly, it is more advantageous to use ( b instead of the
bed expansion ratio for the vibration-assisted fluidization,
because often no bed expansion but consolidation is observed
for a particle bed under vibration particularly when the
superficial gas velocity is below the minimum fluidization
velocity [8,13].
The particles used in this study are Al2O3 (4.8 Am), TiO2
(5.2 Am), CaCO3 (5.5 Am) and glass beads (6.1, 10, 39, 65 and
216 Am average in size), pertaining to Geldart groups C, A and
B particles. Table 1 gives the key physical properties of these
powders and Fig. 2 shows the size distribution. To minimize
 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144 137

Table 1
Particles used in the experiments
Powders d (1)
p (Am) Density (kg/m3) H R(3) ( – ) AOR(4) (-) Geldart group(5) Morphology(6)
qp q bt(4) q ba(4)
Al2O3 4.8 3850 1610 790 2.04 52.6 C Irregular
TiO2 5.2 3880 760 450 1.69 45.9 C Irregular
CaCO3 5.5 2700 1160 520 2.23 50.0 C Irregular
GB-S(2) 6.1 2500 1160 600 1.93 53.6 C Spherical
GB-S(2) 10 2500 1550 1000 1.55 49.1 C Spherical
GB-S(2) 39 2500 1510 1360 1.11 33.5 A Spherical
GB-I(2) 39 2500 1660 990 1.68 44.7 A or C Irregular
GB-S(2) 65 2500 1510 1370 1.10 30.4 A Spherical
GB-S(2) 216 2500 1620 1590 1.02 20.4 B Spherical
1
The volume-weighted mean diameter by laser diffraction (Malvern Mastersizer 2000).
2
Soda lime silica glass beads (GB): -S (spherical shape), -I (irregular shape).
3
Hausner ratio = q bt / q ba.
4
Analyzed by a Hosokawa Powder Tester.
5
Geldart [3].
6
Determined by SEM.

the influence of moisture, all types of particles were subject to
drying overnight at 80 -C under vacuum before being loaded
into the bed for the fluidization tests. To investigate the
influence of the particle shape, two glass bead samples of same
mean diameter at 39 Am but different shapes (spherical and
irregular) are also examined in this study. The irregular shaped
glass bead sample (39 Am) is prepared by jet milling of the
glass beads (65 Am) followed by sieving to the desired size.
Fig. 3 shows the SEM photos of these two samples of glass
beads of different shapes.
essentially no fluidization. When mechanical vibration is
applied, however, the fluidization state of all these particles
can be significantly improved. When the gas velocity increases
to a certain value, depending on the powder type and the
vibration conditions, the plug and channel phenomena disap-
pear, the bed pressure drop increases and smooth bed
expansion starts. For fine particles of TiO2 (5.2 Am), Al2O3
(4.8 Am) and CaCO3 (5.5 Am), the entire fluidization of the bed
is still not obtainable even under vibration. In this case, the

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Fluidization behaviour of fine particles under mechanical

vibration

For the Group C particles of Al2O3 (4.8 Am), TiO2 (5.2 Am),
CaCO3 (5.5 Am) and glass beads (6.1 and 10 Am) under no
vibration, the whole bed usually tends to lift as a plug with a
relatively high pressure drop when the air flow is initially
turned on and increased slowly. Channelling and agglomerat-
ing take place when the gas velocity further increases, with
Cumulative volume percentage (%)

Al2O3 (4.8µm)
100 TiO2 (5.2µm)
CaCO3 (5.5µm)
GB-S (6.1µm)
80
GB-S (10µm)
GB-S (39µm)
60 GB-I (39µm)
GB-S (65µm)
GB-S (216µm)
40

20

0
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Particle size (µm)
Fig. 3. SEM photos of glass beads (39 Am) of different shapes: (a) spherical and
Fig. 2. Size distribution of the powders used. (b) irregular.
138 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144

observation is that only a partial fluidization can be achieved at
the top-bed, while stagnant agglomerates begin to form at the
bottom of the bed. On the other hand, an entire fluidization is
attained for the glass beads (6.1 and 10 Am) under vibration,
and a minimum fluidization velocity can be determined from
the plots of bed pressure drop against superficial gas velocity,
as will be discussed later.
Fig. 4 shows plots of the normalized pressure drop and the
average bed voidage against the superficial gas velocity
during fluidization of the typical group C particles of TiO2
(5.2 Am), Al2O3 (4.8 Am) and glass beads (6.1 Am) with and
without mechanical vibration (50 Hz/0.3 mm). For these three
group C powders under no vibration, a nearly linear
relationship between the pressure drop and the superficial
gas velocity is clearly observed in the log – log coordinates,
which is typical for a fixed bed. However, by applying the
vibration (50 Hz/0.3 mm), higher pressure-drops are obtained
for all these powders, suggesting an improved gas – solid
contacting efficiency. In particular, for glass beads (6.1 Am),
the normalized bed pressure drop attains approximately unity
when the gas velocity reaches around 0.1 cm/s, as shown in
Fig. 4a, indicating a thorough fluidization. The incipient or
minimum fluidization velocity (u mf) is determined by the
conventional means [14], as illustrated in Fig. 4a. It should be
(a)
umf
Normalized pressure drop (-)
noted that for all the cases shown in Fig. 4a, except for the
6.1 Am glass beads under vibration, the u mf obtained, should
be more appropriately called the apparent minimum fluidiza-
tion velocity, since the fluidization of an entire bed is not
achieved in the testing range of u g. Meanwhile, the vibration
causes consolidation of the particle bed at a lower gas
velocity, resulting in much smaller values of ( b than those
without vibration, as shown in Fig. 4b. Similar observations
of the consolidation effect of mechanical vibration have been
reported in some previous studies [4,13,15,16]. It is shown in
Fig. 4b that for TiO2 (5.2 Am), the consolidation phenomenon
appears essentially in the whole range of the gas velocities
(0¨5 cm/s) tested. As for the other two powders, namely
Al2O3 (4.8 Am) and glass beads (6.1 Am), there exists a
transition point of superficial gas velocity at about 0.4 cm/s,
beyond which the average bed voidages under vibration will
exceed those without vibration. It should be noted that all of
these three powders belong to Geldart group C powders and
there is no clear trend in the Hausner ratio, AOR, moisture
level or particle shape that would suggest the TiO2 should be
different in bed expansion behaviors under vibrated condi-
tions from the other powders. A possible reason is that the
TiO2 powder (5.2 Am) used in this study has a much wider
size-distribution compared with those of the other two
powders, as shown in Fig. 2. This assertion may be further
proven by comparing the bed expansion behaviors between
the 39 Am smooth glass beads of a narrow size-distribution
and the 39 Am irregular-shaped glass beads of a wider size-

1
distribution, as will be shown later in Fig. 7.
The effects of mechanical vibration on the fluidization
behaviour of glass beads (10, 65 and 216 Am), pertaining to
typical Geldart groups C, A and B, are shown in Fig. 5. The
0.1 pressure drops across the bed are significantly increased for all
types of particles under vibration, leading to a much smaller
u mf than that without vibration. The u mf for 10 Am glass beads
becomes the lowest after vibration is applied, in comparison to
being the highest among the three powders without vibration.
0.01 The vibration appears to have ‘‘rectified’’ the trend to that u mf
0.01 0.1 1 10
Superficial gas velocity (cm/s)
decreases with particle size. In addition, similar to that formerly
shown in Fig. 4b for Al2O3 (4.8 Am) and glass beads (6.1 Am),
(b) there is a transition gas velocity at about 0.1 cm/s for the 10Am
0.90
glass beads, beyond which the average bed voidage under
0.85 vibration exceeds that without vibration. For the other two
Average bed voidage (-)

powders of larger sizes, i.e., glass beads (65 and 216 Am),
0.80 however, the particle beds are consolidated almost in the whole
range of gas velocities tested and the consolidation is more
0.75 remarkable at lower gas velocities, as illustrated in Fig. 5b.

0.70 TiO2 (5.2µm)

3.2. Influencing factors
Al2O3 (4.8µm)
0.65 GB-S (6.1µm)
Open symbols: No vibration The factors that may influence the performance of mechan-
Solid symbols: 50Hz/0.3mm ical vibration on fine particle fluidization are the properties of
0.60
0.01 0.1 1 10 the primary particles (e.g., Geldart type, size-distribution and
Superficial gas velocity (cm/s) shape) and the vibration parameters (e.g., frequency, amplitude
Fig. 4. Effects of mechanical vibration on hydrodynamic behaviours of typical and angle), among which the effects of particle shape and size-
Geldart group C particles of TiO2 (5.2 Am), Al2O3 (4.8 Am) and glass beads distribution on the fluidization behaviour of fine particles under
(6.1 Am): (a) the normalized bed pressure drop and (b) the average bed voidage. vibration are studied for the first time.
 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144 139

(a) the results of u mf for glass beads fluidized with and without
umf vibration (50 Hz/0.3 mm) are plotted against the mean particle
Normalized pressure drop (-)

1
size. It is shown that the vibration leads to a decrease in u mf for
all types of the glass bead samples. Such effect is particularly
remarkable for the group C particles. However, the effective-
ness of vibration decreases with the particle size. It thus
0.1 suggests that the effect of vibration on fluidization of fine
particles strongly depends on the Geldart type of particles.
In addition to Geldart type, the influence of particle shape
on the performance of vibration has also been investigated by
using two glass bead samples of the same mean diameter at 39
0.01 Am but different shapes, spherical and irregular. Fig. 7 shows
0.01 0.1 1 10 the comparison of the average bed voidage for the two samples
Superficial gas velocity (cm/s) fluidized with and without vibration. Although these two
(b) powders are in the same category (group A) according to
0.90
Geldart classification [3], the irregular shaped sample has a
0.85 GB-S (10µm)
much higher bed voidage in fluidization and shows a larger bed
GB-S (65µm)
Average bed voidage (-)

0.80
GB-S (216µm)
expansion ratio. The difference may be ascribed to the
0.75 Open symbols: No vibration differences in surface properties and hence the change in
0.70 Solid symbols: 50Hz/0.3mm
interparticle forces. In addition to the van der Waals force being
0.65 considered as the dominant interparticle force for most fine
0.60 particles [1], mechanical forces due to interlocking of re-entrant
0.55 surfaces can be significant for the particles of irregular shapes
0.50 [2]. As given in Table 1, the Hausner ratio (q bt / q ba = 1.68) and
0.45 the angle of repose (AOR = 44.7-) for the irregular glass beads
0.40 are much higher than those for the spherical one, suggesting an
0.35
0.01 0.1 1 10
increased interparticle force due to the irregular shape. In term
Superficial gas velocity (cm/s) of the Hausner ratio and the angle of repose, the 39 Am
irregular shaped glass beads are more likely classified as the
Fig. 5. Effects of mechanical vibration on hydrodynamic behaviours of glass group C powder according to the new criteria of Geldart et al.
beads (10, 65 and 216 Am): (a) the normalized bed pressure drop and (b) the
average bed voidage.
[17] and Zhao et al. [18]. Although it is obviously not true to
conclude that a group C powder will exhibit higher bed
From the discussion in the previous section regarding Figs. expansions than a group A powder, the theory of Jaraiz et al.
4 and 5, the performance of vibration varies significantly with [5] do suggest that for group A particles, an increased
the types of particles. The influence of the Geldart type on fine interparticle force will result in an enhancement in tensile
particle fluidization can be further revealed from Fig. 6, where
0.70
Glass Beads (39 µm)
Glass Beads (6.1-216 µm)
10.00 0.65
Average bed voidage (-)

0.60
umf (cm/s)

0.55

1.00
0.50

0.45 Spherical
Irregular

No vibration 0.40 Open symbols: No vibration

0.10
50Hz/0.3mm Solid symbols: 50Hz/0.3mm

0.05 0.35
5 10 100 300 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
dp (µm) Superficial gas velocity (cm/s)

Fig. 6. u mf as a function of particle size for glass beads with and without Fig. 7. Dependency of bed voidage on particle shape for glass beads (39 Am)
vibration. fluidized with and without vibration.
140 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144

0.3 4.0
strength of the particle bed and lead to a larger bed expansion
Glass Beads (10 µm)
ratio in fluidization. On the other hand, the increased
Glass Beads (39 µm)
interparticle forces appear also to cause difficulty in fluidiza-
tion of the particles and result in a higher u mf as shown in Fig. 3.0
8, where it is shown that vibration (50 Hz/0.3 mm) leads to a
0.2
remarkable decrease of about 50% in u mf for the spherical

umf (cm/s)
sample, but only a slight reduction in u mf for the irregular

Λ (-)
shaped one. In addition to different shapes, another difference 2.0
between these two types of glass beads is the size-distribution.
As revealed in Fig. 2, the smooth glass beads have a narrow
0.1
size-distribution while the irregular-shape sample has a much
wider size-distribution. Such a difference in particle size 1.0

distribution, as well as particle shape, may both contribute to

their different behaviors in bed expansion.
Other influencing factors are the vibration parameters
including frequency, amplitude and angle. Because of the
nature of the mechanical vibration system, it is difficult to vary
only the frequency while maintaining the same amplitude,
although it is obviously advantageous to keep the other
parameters such as the vibration amplitude unchanged when
examining the influence of vibration frequency. Given fixed
conditions of the vibrator, e.g., the unbalanced weight, the
amplitude of vibration is strongly dependent on the frequency
used. With a fixed unbalanced weight of the vibrator, for
instance, the vibration amplitudes are measured at 0.62, 0.34,
0.29, 0.27 and 0.30 mm at the frequency of 10, 20, 30, 40 and
50 Hz, respectively. By taking both frequency and amplitude
into account, a vibration strength (K) is adopted in this work to
characterize the intensity of mechanical vibration. K is a
dimensionless parameter defined as the ratio of acceleration of
vibration to that of gravity, i.e.,
K ¼ Að 2pf Þ2 =g: ð1Þ
A same definition of the vibration strength can be found in
other works of Noda et al. [8] and Wang et al. [15].
Fig. 9 shows dependencies of u mf and K on vibration
frequency ( f) for glass beads (10 and 39 Am). At lower
frequencies ( f  35 Hz), u mf decreases with increasing fre-
Glass Beads (39 µm)
1.0
0.0 0.0
10 20 30 40 50
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 9. Dependencies of u mf and K on vibration frequency for glass beads (10
and 39 Am).
quency for both types of particles, whereas the decreasing
tendency is levelled off at about 30 Hz. At f > 35 Hz, however,
u mf increases slightly with frequency, suggesting that 35 Hz
could be the optimum frequency to achieve the best perfor-
mance of the vibration for the current vibrated fluidized bed
system. On the other hand, a monotonous increasing trend is
shown for the vibration strength with frequency. K increases
relatively slowly with f prior to 35 Hz while more sharply after
this point, also suggesting the frequency of 35 Hz being a
critical point in the relationship between K and f. The
experimental results on the influence of vibration amplitude
on u mf are depicted in Fig. 10, where the dependencies of u mf
and K on vibration amplitude are plotted at a fixed frequency
(20 Hz) for glass beads (10 and 39 Am). Clearly, for both
powders, u mf decreases with both amplitude and the vibration
intensity. It should be noted that although the frequency of 35
0.4 1.0
Frequency at 20 Hz
Glass beads (10 µm)
Glass beads (39 µm) 0.8
0.3

0.8
0.6
umf (cm/s)

Λ (-)
umf (cm/s)

0.2
0.6
No vibration 0.4
50Hz/0.3mm
0.4
0.1
0.2

0.2

0.0 0.0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
0.0
Irregular shape Spherical shape Amplitude (mm)

Fig. 8. Dependency of u mf on particle shape for glass beads (39 Am) fluidized Fig. 10. Dependencies of u mf and K on vibration amplitude for glass beads (10
with and without vibration. and 39 Am).
 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144
Hz is shown to be a critical point for u mf And K in Fig. 9, the
results illustrated in Fig. 10 are for a fixed frequency at 20 Hz.
The reason why the frequency was fixed at a value other than
the critical value (35 Hz) in examining the effects of vibration
amplitude is to avoid the possible predominance of the
frequency over the amplitude.
In addition to the influences of vibration frequency and
amplitude, the effect of vibration angle (or direction) on
fluidization is also investigated with glass beads (39 Am) under
frequencies of 10 –50 Hz, and the results are shown in Fig. 11.
As expected, the effect of vibration on the fluidization of the
powder changes greatly with the vibration angle. For most
frequencies tested, the best performance (leading to lowest u mf
values) is observed at the vibration angle of 0- (horizontal
vibration), worse at 45- and the worst at 90- (vertical
vibration). One possible reason is that the horizontal vibration
could disrupt the channels formed or reduce the tensile strength
of the particle bed more efficiently than the vertical vibration.
In addition, the influence of frequency shown in Fig. 9 can also
be observed in Fig. 11: u mf decreases with the frequency at
lower frequencies and levels off at about 35 Hz. Like in many
other mechanical vibration systems, the horizontal vibration
generated by the present vibrator-system may inevitably
contain a minor component of vertical vibration that may also
contribute to the improvement of fluidization quality. Due to
the limited length of the paper, however, this effect is not
discussed.
3.3. Tensile strength of a particle bed
Tensile strength is a fundamental property of materials. In a
particle bed, the value of tensile strength provides a terminal
point of the yield loci of failure for samples in given states of
compaction. It presents the inherent interparticle attractive
forces developed when a mass of particles is compacted. In this
0.25
Glass Beads (39 µm)
Vabration angle:
0.20
90° (Vertical)
0° (Horizontal)
45°
umf (cm/s)
0.15
0.10
0.05
10 20 30 40
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 11. Effect of vibration angle on u mf for glass beads (39 Am) fluidized under
various frequencies.
141
1000
ms g/S σ σ σ σ
ε 0 =0.605
Bed pressure drop (Pa)
500 ε 0 =0.647
ε 0 =0.678
ε 0 =0.704
Glass Beads (6.1 µm)
100
0.05 0.1 0.4
Superficial gas velocity (mm/s)
Fig. 12. Pressure drops across the bed for tensile strength tests for glass beads
(6.1 Am).
study, the following method is applied to determine the tensile
strength of a powder bed with and without vibration. The bed
of fine particles is first consolidated to obtain a compacted bed
of different states of compaction by vibration for different
lengths of time before being subject to the tensile strength tests.
Then, the fluidizing gas is introduced to the bed at a flow rate
increased slowly with a very small step at 1 – 5 ml/min, with the
bed pressure drop recorded simultaneously, until the eventual
rapture of the compacted bed. The tensile strength can then be
determined from the plot of the bed pressure drop in a similar
manner to that reported by Watson et al. [19], as shown in Fig.
12 for 6.1 Am glass beads. The tensile strength is the extra
pressure drop over and above the normal pressure drop
corresponding to the particle weight, required to rupture the
bed. This ‘‘extra force’’ is needed to overcome the interparticle
force, so that it can be another measure of the interparticle
force. The tensile strength thus obtained for all the group C
particles without vibration and for TiO2 (5.2 Am) particles with
and without vibration are shown in Fig. 13. In all cases, the
tensile strength reduces dramatically in a linear relationship
with the initial bed voidage. As the initial bed voidage
increases, the bed compaction becomes less and so does the
interparticle force. This obviously leads to much lower tensile
strength. More importantly, it is shown that vibration can
dramatically lower the tensile strength of the particle bed.
3.4. Roles of vibration in the fluidization of fine particles
Despite the vital importance, a comprehensive understand-
ing on the roles of vibration in the fluidization of fine particles
has not yet been reported in the literature. Therefore, a general
discussion is presented here for the possible roles of vibration
with respect to bed voidage, pressure drop, agglomeration and
50
tensile strength of a particle bed.
The bed voidage (or the bed expansion ratio) and the
pressure drop across the bed are the most commonly used
parameters to characterize the fluidization behaviours of
142 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144

350
particles. Results from the previous section (Figs. 4 and 5) have
indicated a decrease in bed voidage and an increase in bed
300
TiO2 (5.2 µm)
pressure drop at a low gas velocity for all the particles with
vibration. Obviously, consolidation effect of the vibration may
account for the decrease in bed voidage. The cause for the
Tensile strength, σ (Pa)

250
increase in bed pressure drop may lie in two aspects. First, from
Al2O3 (4.8 µm)
200
the well-known Ergun equation [20],
CaCO3 (5.5 µm)  
DP 150ð1  eb Þ2 lg lg 1:75ð1  eb Þ qg u2g
150 ¼
þ
Glass Beads (6.1 µm) L drag eb3 /s d̄ p
2
e3b /s d¯ p

100
ð2Þ

a decrease in bed voidage (( b) due to vibration may lead to an

50
increase in bed pressure drop. Second, it has been observed that
TiO2 (5.2 µm)
(10Hz/0.3mm)
vibration can efficiently eliminate the formation of channels,
0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
which also leads to more uniform fluidization, and therefore
Initial bed voidage, ε0 (-)
also an increase in pressure drop.
To examine the self-agglomeration of fine particles during
Fig. 13. Tensile strengths for group C particles and the effect of vibration. fluidization, a method to sample the agglomerates out of the

Fig. 14. Agglomerate formation in fluidization of the 5.5 Am CaCO3 powder at 9.5 cm/s for 3 h with and without vibration (45 Hz/0.45 mm): (a) the top-bed
agglomerates, (b) the middle-bed agglomerates and (c) the bottom-bed agglomerates.
 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144
bed without disruption is crucial. This is very challenging due
to the fragile structure of the agglomerates. In this work, a
novel ‘‘on-line sampling’’ method has been developed to
prevent the agglomerates from being disrupted while main-
taining their size and shape during sampling. The on-line
sampling method has been introduced in Xu et al. [16] and
described in more detail in another paper by Xu and Zhu [21].
In brief, the agglomerates are sampled in situ, i.e., without
stopping the fluidizing gas or making any other changes to the
fluidizing conditions (e.g. vibration) by using a sampling ladle
from the top of the column. To sample the agglomerates in the
upper region of the bed, the ladle is used to pick up the
agglomerates directly. To sample the agglomerates in the
middle and bottom regions, an intensity-controllable vacuum
is used to carefully remove all the particulate materials above
the sampling plane before a sample is taken. Fig. 14 shows the
microscopic images of agglomerates sampled from both the
top and the bottom of the bed of the CaCO3 particles (5.5 Am)
after being ‘‘fluidized’’ in air at 9.5 cm/s for 3 h with and
without mechanical vibration (45 Hz/0.45 mm). Under no
vibration, the maximum size of the top-bed agglomerates is
around 500 Am and the bottom-bed agglomerates around 6000
Am, suggesting a very severe segregation of agglomerate size.
With vibration, however, the maximum agglomerate sizes
from the bottom-bed are reduced to about 500 Am and become
similar to that from the top bed at around 400 Am. Obviously,
vibration can substantially reduce both the average size and
the segregation of agglomerates in the bed, both very
important for improving the fluidization quality of cohesive
particles.
Since tensile strength is a fundamental property of a particle
bed, representing the inherent interparticle attractive forces
developed when a mass of particles is compacted, the role of
vibration may also be evaluated with respect to the tensile
strength of a particle bed. As shown formerly in Fig. 13, for the
particle bed of TiO2 (5.2 Am), the tensile strength is
dramatically reduced when vibration is applied. It therefore
suggests that vibration can overcome the interparticle forces of
fine particles and improves their fluidization quality.
Therefore, the roles of mechanical vibration in fluidization
of fine particles may be summarized as follows: the consoli-
dation effect of vibration causes lower bed voidages, the
disruption of the channels and agglomeration leads to more
uniform fluidization and thus higher bed pressure drops as well
as a lower u mf, and the vibration also reduces interparticle
forces and thus the tensile strength. In one words, the external
energy introduced by vibration helps the fluidization of
cohesive particles by disrupting channels, breaking the
agglomerates and reducing the tensile strength of the particle
bed.
4. Conclusions
(1) For all the powders examined, the fluidization quality
can be enhanced by mechanical vibration, leading to
higher bed pressure drops at low superficial gas
velocities and lower values of u mf.
143
(2) The effectiveness of vibration is strongly dependent on
the particle properties (Geldart particle type, size-
distribution and shape). The effectiveness is found to
be more significant for group C powders or smaller
particles than for groups A and B powders or larger
particles. In comparison with the spherical particles, the
irregular particles exhibit higher expansion ratios or
larger bed voidages, but are more difficulty in becoming
fluidized (leading to a higher u mf) probably due to the
enhanced interparticle forces.
(3) Vibration parameters also show strong influence on fine
particle fluidization. At low vibration intensities, u mf
decreases as the vibration intensity increases (by increas-
ing either frequency or amplitude) but levels off when the
intensity reaches a critical value. For the first time, the
effectiveness of mechanical vibration is demonstrated to
strongly depend on the vibration angle or direction, with
the best performance being observed at 0- (horizontal
vibration) and the worst at 90- (vertical vibration).
(4) Vibration can dramatically lower the tensile strength of
the particle bed, suggesting that vibration can overcome
the interparticle forces of fine powders and improve their
fluidization quality.
(5) The possible roles of mechanical vibration in fluidization
of fine particles are examined with respect to bed
voidage, pressure drop, agglomeration and tensile
strength of the particle bed. The decrease in bed voidage
at a lower gas velocity (caused by the consolidation
effect of the vibration) and the elimination of the
channels by vibration may account for the increase in
bed pressure drops. Vibration can also significantly
reduce both the average size and the segregation of
agglomerates in the bed, both vitally important for
improving the fluidization quality of cohesive particles.
Nomenclature
A Amplitude of vibration (m)
AOR Angle of repose (-)
D Inner diameter of the fluidized bed column (m)
dp Mean particle size (m)
f Frequency of vibration (Hz)
g Gravity acceleration (9.81 m/s2)
L0 Static (unexpanded) bed height (m)
L Bed height (m)
ms Weight of solids in the fluidized bed (kg)
DP Pressure drop across the fluidized bed (Pa)
RH Hausner ratio (= q bt / q ba) (– )
S Cross sectional area of the fluidized bed column (m2)
ug Superficial gas velocity (m/s)
u mf Minimum fluidization velocity (m/s)
Greek letters
(b Average bed voidage (– )
(0 Initial average bed voidage (– )
K Vibration strength ( – )
q ba Aerated bulk density of the particles (kg/m3)
144 C. Xu, J. Zhu / Powder Technology 161 (2006) 135 – 144

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