Dear Friends, I am trying to model the flow of particles on a fluidized bed. I thought I should use FLUENT Discrete Phase Model, the solid phase consists of solid particles, the continuous phase is simply air. But, I noticed that FLUENT Discrete Phase Modeling requires the particles be spherical shape, how about particles in cubic or cylindrical shape? I wonder if FLUENT can handle such a problem, if it can, your suggestion is highly appreciated. If not, any other way to deal with this problem, which looks simple. Thanks a lot. Fred

Dear Fred

It is not your concern, but it may be very important aspect for your simulation. First of all, please check mass ratio of solid/gas in your system.

In general, it is nearly impossible to acquire converged solution of gas-solid two phase flow in the fludized bed 'BY DPM', because mass loading ratio in the fludized bed reactor is very high. The maximum allowable value by DPM is order of 1(100%), whereas the value of fludized-bed is, in general, very high, say, greater than 10(1000%).

Comment : You can easily obtain one-way coupling (gas flow is not affected by solid particle) solution, but the flow is considered as two-way coupling(gas and particle affect each other) when (S/G)_mass is greater than about 0.2, where, (S/G) is soild mass flow rate over gas mass flow rate.

Sincerely, Jinwook

Fluent can handle that,in the DPM panel you can define the particles as spherical or not. If not you must supply the sphericity factor ( factor shape). Regards

You can use a user-defined function to create your injection. In that case have a look in the user guide for Fluent5, (injection from file). Good luck