Discussion

A fluidized bed can be created by a gas flowing through a bed of solid particles that
are in some kind of vessel, for this experiment inside a column. Under the
appropriate conditions the gas will cause the solid to begin to behave as a fluid and
when this occurs the bed is fluidized. Fluidized beds are useful because they create
a large contact surface area between the solid and gas, which allows for an increase
in the overall heat or mass transfer. Some of uses of this technique in chemical
engineering are in the processes of fluid catalytic cracking and fluidized bed
combustion, both of which are widely used in the energy industries today.
The main objective of this experiment was achieved when the heat transfer
coefficient in the fluidized bed was calculated as expected and the rate of heat
transfer was also determined. The experiment was initiated by using silica sand fixed
at the temperature of 40C constant pressure supply of 0.1kg/cm 2 . It was not
advised to run experiments at temperatures higher than 80C because the epoxy
which holds the thermocouples in place degrades at 90C.

Based on table 1, the temperature T1,T2,T3 was recorded at the interval of 10

minutes until the steady state values obtained. The inlet temperature of air T 1, sand
temperature T2 and outlet temperature of air T3 was in steady state at 60 th minute of
time at constant pressure of 0.1kg/cm 2. The value of inlet temperature T1 attained
steady state at temperature of 37.0C followed by the temperature of sand in the bed
was in steady state at 81.8C and the outlet temperature of air was recorded at
77.1C. The steady state values ontained from T1,T2,T3 proves that the net heat
transfer between the inlet air, outlet air and the sand in the fluidized bed was zero at
certain period of time. It concluded that the heat transfer between the solid to gas by
conduction between those mediums causes the temperatures T 1,T2,T3 to obtain
thermal equilibrium. The level of water h 1 and h2 in manometer was remained
constant throughout the experiment where the value of h 1 is 16.0cm and h2 was
15.4cm. based on the tabulated data, a graph of T 1,T2,T3 obtained which shows the
effects of temperatures at every 10 minutes of interval.

Based on the data calculated in table 2, the rate of heat transfer Q, driving force T
and heat transfer coefficient h, was calculated for every 10 minutes interval and the
graph was plotted against the time to observe the effect of all the variables Q, T
and h. Initially the rate of heat transfer Q was calculated as 48.022W and at the 10 th
minutes its increases to 49.371W which was the highest value obtain as in the
graph. Thus, the rate of heat transfer was highest at 10 th minutes of time which was
due to the increase in mass flow rate of the fluid. This is because the fluid flowing
into the column was in the gaseous state. In this state the fluid is more viscous than
it was in the liquid state because the gas particles are moving a lot faster and
crashing into each other, thus transferring momentum and impeding each others
movement. However, Its gradually decreases to 44.437W at the 60th minutes of
interval and remains constant for several time as shown in figure 2. The driving force
on the other hand also shows a highest value of 8.3C initially and decreases to
4.1C as the flow rate decreases. The heat transfer coefficient,h was calculated at
different flow rate of the fluid as shown in table 2. from the graph in figure 2, it can be
concluded that the heat transfer coefficient was 3.1977(W/m 2C) initially and shows
the highest value of 52.3011(W/m 2C) at 20th minute. However, the heat transfer
coefficient was started decreasing at 50 th minute and maintains a steady state value
of 5.4264(W/m2C) for the next 30 minutes. This was due to the difference in driving
force, T (C) as the driving force increases the heat transfer coefficient decreases
and vice versa as shown in the graph. The smaller heat transfer coefficient is due to
higher flow rate of air from outside of the bed.
The major reason for errors in this experiment derives from a lack of true knowledge of the
equivalent spherical diameter of the bed grains. Other reasons for error in our data and

calculations came from the fact that the flow rate of the air fluctuates, due to the
source being shared, so we had to take approximate values for the flow rates in our
calculations. The air flow meters were extremely sensitive so we could not change
our flow rates at a constant interval, which would have helped the usefulness of the
calculated values. Another factor that contributed to the error was the heights of the
beds of sand and silica, which were measured with a meter stick, from the outside of
the column. A more accurate way of measuring the heights of the beds would include
graduations being marked on the column, perhaps with a black marker