Local, Instantaneous Heat Transfer in Pulse-Stabilized Fluidization

Abstract

The Pulsed Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Combustor (PAFBC), a hybrid combustor concept that couples a pulsed combustor with an atmospheric bubbling fluidized bed, has technical advantages in energy efficiency and emissions. The present study examines the effect of an opposing oscillatory flow on the local, instantaneous heat transfer in a laboratory scale bubbling gas-fluidized bed. This opposing secondary flow consisted of a steady mean component and an oscillating component thereby modeling the flow in the tailpipe of a pulsed combustor. Spectral and contact time analyses of local, instantaneous heat flux measurements from a heated, submerged horizontal cylinder clearly indicate that the bed hydrodynamics were significantly altered by the opposing secondary flow. These heat flux measurements were accomplished by employing an isothermal platinum film heat flux gage. For the present investigation, data were acquired for a monodisperse distribution of particles with a mean diameter of 345 μm and total fluidization ratios ranging from 1.1 through 2.7. Heat transfer observed under conditions of secondary flows with a superimposed waveform exhibit characteristics of globally dominated, as opposed to locally dominated, hydrodynamics. For low primary and secondary flow rates and a forcing frequency of 5 Hz, a substantial enhancement in heat transfer was observed. Increases in the bubble phase and emulsion phase heat transfer coefficients were identified as the primary contributors to the observed increases in time-averaged local heat transfer coefficients.