Surface-to-bed heat transfer in fluidised beds of fine particles

This work reports experimental results on the heat transfer between a fluidised bed of fine particles and a submerged surface. Experiments have been carried out using different bed materials (polymers, ballotini, corundum, carborundum and quartz sand) with Archimedes number between 2 and 50. Dry air at ambient pressure and temperature has been used as fluidising gas. Three different exchange surfaces, namely a sphere and two cylinders with different base diameter and same height, have been used. Experimental results show that the heat transfer coefficient increases with particle Archimedes number and is almost independent from particle thermal conductivity for Kp/Kg > 30. Finally, the comparison of heat transfer coefficient for the different surfaces shows that the effect of the surface geometry may account for a 30% variation in the heat transfer coefficient, with higher differences occurring for coarser particles.