OCTOBER 19-20, 2012 - YMCA University of Science & Technology

Proceedings of the National Conference on
Trends and Advances in Mechanical Engineering,
YMCA University of Science & Technology, Faridabad, Haryana, Oct 19-20, 2012
CFD MODELING FOR PNEUMATIC CONVEYING
Arvind Kumar 1 , D.R. Kaushal 2 , Navneet Kumar 3
1 Associate Professor YMCAUST, Faridabad
2 Associate Professor, IIT, Delhi
3 Research Scholar IIT, Delhi
e-mail: arvindeem@yahoo.co.in
Abstract
CFD simulation is used to investigate the pressure drop prediction capabilities of CFD techniques for a 90 0 pipe
bend in horizontal plane for an extended range of conveying conditions in a pneumatic pipe line system. The
conveyed material was cement with a mean particle size (d 50 ) of 25 micron. In Test Rig, the 90 0 bend of 52mm
internal diameter and D/d of 6 was configured horizontally. The computational grids for the horizontal pipe
bend similar to that used in experiment. There is broad qualitative agreement in trends and flow patterns of
pneumatic conveying through pipeline system. For the high solids loading ratio the Eulerian solver and transient
analysis and at lower solids loading ratios the mixture model and steady-state analysis were more appropriate.
1. Introduction
Pneumatic conveying is widely used in process industries to transport granular materials of different types
because of its flexibility of layout compared with other mechanical conveying methods and environmentally
friendliness. There are three common modes of transport of material in pneumatically conveying (i) The dilute
phase where all the material is normally in suspension flow (ii) Dense phase plug flow for non-cohesive particles
with high bulk permeability (iii) Dense phase bed flow for materials with suitable aeration and deaeration
characteristics. Several CFD-based models are reported in the literature for the three modes of flow, Mason et al
(1998) for dilute phase, Tsuji et al (1992), Xiang and McGlinchey (2004) for dense phase plug flow, Mason and
Levy (2001) for dense phase flow.
A CFD simulation is used to investigate the pressure drop prediction capabilities of CFD techniques
across a 90 0 bend both in a horizontal plane for an extended range of conveying conditions in a pneumatic
conveying system.
Experimental data available in literature used for comparison
The experimental data used in the present study for comparison with CFD predictions are of
McGlinchey et al (2007). The conveyed material was cement with a mean particle size (d 50 ) of approximately 25
micron (d 10 = 6.5 micron, d 90 = 72.5 micron, approximately). In Test Rig, the 90 0 bend of 52mm internal
diameter and D/d of 6 was configured horizontally with single-ended and differential pressure transducers as
shown in Fig. 1 Different conveying conditions were achieved with superficial air velocities at the start of the
conveying line
Fig. 1 Bend geometry and pressure measurement locations (A and B) for pneumatic conveying through
horizontal bend.
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