Overall and Average Local Heat Transfer From a Horizontal Cylinder in a Gas-Fluidized Bed With an Opposing Oscillatory Flow

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 fundamental aspects of heat transfer in this hybrid combustor by measuring the effect of an opposing oscillatory flow on the overall and time-averaged local 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. 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. Overall and time-averaged local heat flux measurements from the surface of a submerged horizontal cylinder show that heat transfer characteristics are significantly altered by an opposing oscillatory flow. Increases in overall heat transfer on the order of 12% were identified for operating conditions with low primary’ and secondary flow rates and low pulse frequencies. These enhancements were identified to be a consequence of significant localized enhancements. The fundamental trends and magnitude of the particle Nusselt number are effectively characterized by a modified form of the Strouhal number.