DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF SOLID DRAG FORCE IN FLUID–PARTICLE FLOW

Many industrial applications involve fluidization systems in which it is possible to distinguish solid particles acting as a separate phase. The fluid–particle drag forces are well known and have been widely described in the literature to account for the momentum transfer between the phases whereas the study of particle–particle interaction still has several challenges especially for dense flow regimes. In this work, a novel method for the measurement of the particle–particle drag force was developed, using a cantilever beam with four strain gauges. For validation purposes, fluid–particle drag was investigated, the measurement device was evaluated considering two systems, in the first case, a spherical object was exposed to an air flow in a vertical tube where different velocities were used and for the second one, the forces resulting from impinging jet flows on the sphere were considered. The results show good agreement with the theoretical values. The results show good agreement with the theoretical values. The average magnitude of drag force upon a larger spherical object immersed on a flow of small particles was measured under different streams conditions, for different impinging height, size, and density of the particles.