Investigation of a swirling flow nozzle for a fluidised bed gas distributor

This paper relates to a multi-orifice distributor for a gas-fluidised bed, using many upward-facing nozzles, equally spaced in a horizontal plate. Each orifice contained a removable helical coil, which made the gas swirl as it entered the bed. For a single orifice in such a distributor, ultra-fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pressure measurements were applied to study: (i) the formation of jets and bubbles and (ii) the orifice pressure drop. Results from MRI show that the swirling flow induced by the helix significantly improves the fluidisation quality compared to a plain nozzle without spiral. The helix gives rise to secondary flow which increases pressure drop across the nozzle, the measured values of which are predicted satisfactorily by using a friction factor correlation for helical coils.The authors thank Dr Stephen Sutcliffe and Mo Dadvar of Huntsman for providing both financial and technical assistance for this project, and Suttons Seeds for the kind donation of poppy seeds used for MRI. S.M. Aworinde is grateful to the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust (CCT) for scholarship award to study at Cambridge

Flow patterns and cleaning behaviour of horizontal liquid jets impinging on angled walls

Liquid jets are widely used in cleaning operations in the food sector. Morison and Thorpe (2002) reported an experimental investigation of the flow patterns and cleaning behaviour of horizontal jets impinging on vertical walls. The Wilson et al. (2012) model, which described Morison and Thorpe's flow pattern data well, is extended to describe the flow pattern generated by a liquid jet, approaching a surface at a given angle to the horizontal, impinging on a plate inclined at a known angle to the vertical. The results are compared with experimental data collected for horizontal water jets impinging on inclined Perspex and glass plates. Tests employed nozzle diameters of 1, 2 and 3mm at room temperature, using flow rates of 0.78–2.23gs−1, 3.7–9.9gs−1 and 7.1–17.3gs−1 (0.025–0.062m3h−1) respectively. These are lower than industrial cleaning flow rates. The angle at which the horizontal jet impinged on the plate was varied from 30° to 120°. Two important dimensions are evaluated: (i) the width of the fast moving radial flow zone on the plate (the region bounded by the film jump, the feature similar to a hydraulic jump) at the plane of impingement; (ii) the distance on the plate to which the radial flow zone extends above the point of impingement. Both are described reasonably well by the model. Empirical relationships are reported for the width of the wetted region at the level of impingement, and the maximum width of the draining film. A short study of cleaning of layers of washable paint on glass, similar to the tests reported by Morison and Thorpe, show that the cleaning model recently developed by Wilson et al. (2014) gives a good description of the initial cleaning of such layers using an impinging stationary coherent water jet.A PhD scholarship for TW from Chengda Engineering Co. is gratefully acknowledged.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fbp.2014.09.00

Particle image velocimetry and modelling of horizontal coherent liquid jets impinging on and draining down a vertical wall

The flow patterns created by a coherent horizontal liquid jet impinging on a vertical wall at moderate flow rates (jet flowrates 0.5-4.0 L min-1, jet velocities 2.6-21 m s-1) are studied with water on glass, polypropylene and polymethylmethacrylate (acrylic, Perspex®) using a novel particle image velicometry (PIV) technique employing nearly opaque liquid doped with artificial pearlescence to track surface velocity. Flow patterns similar to those reported in previous studies are observed on each substrate: their dimensions differed owing to the influence of wall material on contact angle. The dimensions are compared with models for (i) the radial flow zone, reported by Wang et al. (2013b), and (ii) the part of the draining film below the jet impingement point where it narrows to a node. For (ii), the model presented by Mertens et al. (2005) is revised to include a simpler assumed draining film shape and an alternative boundary condition accounting for surface tension effects acting at the film edge. This revised model gives equally good or better fits to the experimental data as compared with the Mertens et al. model. The effective contact angle which gives good agreement with the data is found to lie between the measured quasi-static advancing and receding contact angles, at approximately half the advancing value. The PIV measurements confirmed the existence of a thin, fast moving film with radial flow surrounding the point of impingement, and a wide draining film bounded by ropes of liquid below the impingement point. While these measurements generally support the predictions of existing models, these models assume that the flow is steady. In contrast, surface waves were evident in both regions and this partly explains the difference between the measured surface velocity and the values estimated from the models.The apparatus was constructed by Tao Wang and Lee Pratt. Preparatory work by Huifeng Wu, and Nevile Research Fellowship for JRL from Magdalene College, Cambridge, are gratefully acknowledged.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2015.12.01

Cleaning of a model food soil from horizontal plates by a moving vertical water jet

The removal of layers of a model food soil (dried Xanthan gum containing fluorescent ZnS particles) by a vertical water jet impinging normally on to the plate, generated by a solid stream nozzle which moves across the plate was reported by Köhler et al. (2014). Their experiments investigated nozzle pressures from 0.5-2.0 barg; nozzle diameters from 0.84-2.66 mm, nozzle-layer separation of 20 mm, and nozzle traverse speeds of 2.1-126 mm s-1. The flow parameters and separation are smaller than those typical of industrial jet cleaning operations. The model developed by Wilson et al. (2014; Chem. Eng. Sci., 109, 183–196) for cleaning of similar layers by a stationary impinging jet was modified to describe the case of moving nozzle. This new model predicted the trends observed in the experiments, and analysis of the data yielded a similar cleaning rate constant to that obtained previously for cleaning of similar layers by stationary jets. The model predicted a non-circular cleaning front which matched that extracted from new experiments in which the flow was interrupted in order to capture this feature. The model allowed the cleaning performance indicators suggested by Köhler et al. (2014) to be expressed quantitatively: these indicated that higher nozzle traverse speeds give increased cleaning time, energy and liquid consumption performance.The work at TU Dresden was funded by the European Union and the Free State of Saxony as part of project SAB 080951793. A short vacation study grant for LC from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, is gratefully acknowledged.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000925091400630

Cleaning of complex soil layers on vertical walls by fixed and moving impinging liquid jets

Cleaning by a horizontal water jet, impinging onto a soiled Perspex vertical plate, is described. The plate, the substrate, was coated with PVA or petroleum jelly, the soil. The substrate was either.(i) fixed, for batch tests in which the cleaned area, roughly circular, grew with time, or(ii) the substrate moved vertically up or down in its own plane, the water jet remaining fixed; this reproduced the effect of a jet moving across a surface for cleaning, as found in real tank cleaning operations.In the batch experiments, growth of the radius a of the cleaning area is well described, at early times t, by a5 – ao5 = K5 (t – to), ao being the initial radius of the cleaned area at time to; K is a constant. At later times with petroleum jelly, the cleaning front reached a maximum value, when the outward momentum of the radially flowing water film balanced the strength of the soil. This maximum value is modelled as a ramp of viscoplastic soil inclined at angle χ to the substrate surface, where χ was found to vary from 7° to 25°.In the tests of continuous cleaning of petroleum jelly, a lengthening cleaned area, of width wc, was observed on the moving substrate. Near the jet was a stationary clean front, whose shape looked like half an ellipse. This shape, and the width wc, are well described by theory (Wilson et al., 2015, 123, 450–459) using parameters from the above-mentioned batch experiments. This establishes a good link between batch and continuous cleaning experiments.Funding for RKB from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission is gratefully acknowledged, as are helpful conversations with Michael Smith and Paul Hodgson. FDG measurements on the PVA layers were performed by Shiyao Wang.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2015.12.02

The continuous combustion of glycerol in a fluidised bed

It is difficult to burn a liquid fuel inside a fluidised bed. For the first time, liquid glycerol has been burned, when continuously injected into the bottom of an electrically heated bed of alumina particles (sieved to 355 – 425 μm), fluidised by air. The temperature in the bed was held at 700, 800 or 900oC; usually (U/Umf) was 2.5. The bed’s depth was varied, as also were (U/Umf) and the ratio of fuel to air supplied to the bed. Measurements were made of the concentrations of CH4, O2, CO and CO2, and also of the temperature, in the freeboard well above the bed. On entering the bed, the liquid glycerol, rapidly formed bubbles of vapour, which quickly decomposed thermally, yielding mostly CO and H2. These gases then mixed with the other gases in the bed. It appears that the diffusive H2 mainly burns between the fluidised particles. With the bed at 700 – 900oC, no CO was detected far downstream of the bed, provided the equivalence ratio, θ, was below 0.7, i.e. with more than 43 % excess air. Under these fuel-lean conditions, all the carbon in the glycerol was oxidised to CO2. However, in a more fuel-rich situation, with θ > 0.7, CO was detected well above the bed, particularly with a deeper bed, at a lower temperature and operating more fuel-rich. Thus, with the bed at 900oC, CO was mostly oxidised inside the bed, but occasionally some CO burned on top of the bed. When a fuel-rich bed was below 850oC, not all the CO burned in the bed. Achieving complete combustion inside a fluidised bed is partly a problem of mixing the products of glycerol’s thermal decomposition with the fluidising air, which on entry exists mainly in bubbles. Consequently, increasing (U/Umf) promoted both mixing and combustion in a bed. In addition, in-bed combustion requires the bed to be sufficiently deep, hotter than 850oC and θ to be less than a critical value. The effects of other variables are discussed

The motion and shape of a bubble in highly viscous liquid flowing through an orifice

Experiments and theory concern the behaviour of a small bubble carried through an orifice by a very viscous liquid. The liquid was polybutene oil, of viscosity about 70 Pa s, i.e. 70,000 times that of water. The Reynolds number of the flow is substantially less than one, hence the flow pattern is approximately radial flowing into, and away from, the orifice. These flow patterns have profound effects on the shape of an entrained bubble. On the upstream side, the acceleration of the liquid, as it approaches the orifice, causes elongation of the bubble since the front of the bubble moves faster than the back. On the downstream side, the reverse occurs: the back of the bubble moves fast than the front. Thus the height of the bubble diminishes as it moves away from the orifice, leading to the formation of a ‘crescent-moon’ shape. The shape of these bubbles can be predicted by considering the motion of a droplet of the same liquid replacing the bubble: the resulting geometric theory gives good predictions of bubble deformation approaching the orifice and of ‘crescent-moon’ formation downstream of the orifice.The work was supported by EPSRC contract number EP/N00230X/1

Small extracellular vesicles secreted from human amniotic fluid mesenchymal stromal cells possess cardioprotective and promigratory potential

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) exhibit antiapoptotic and proangiogenic functions in models of myocardial infarction which may be mediated by secreted small extracellular vesicles (sEVs). However, MSCs have frequently been harvested from aged or diseased patients, while the isolated sEVs often contain high levels of impurities. Here, we studied the cardioprotective and proangiogenic activities of size-exclusion chromatography-purified sEVs secreted from human foetal amniotic fluid stem cells (SS-hAFSCs), possessing superior functional potential to that of adult MSCs. We demonstrated for the first time that highly pure (up to 1.7 × 1010 particles/µg protein) and thoroughly characterised SS-hAFSC sEVs protect rat hearts from ischaemia–reperfusion injury in vivo when administered intravenously prior to reperfusion (38 ± 9% infarct size reduction, p < 0.05). SS-hAFSC sEVs did not protect isolated primary cardiomyocytes in models of simulated ischaemia–reperfusion injury in vitro, indicative of indirect cardioprotective effects. SS-hAFSC sEVs were not proangiogenic in vitro, although they markedly stimulated endothelial cell migration. Additionally, sEVs were entirely responsible for the promigratory effects of the medium conditioned by SS-hAFSC. Mechanistically, sEV-induced chemotaxis involved phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signalling, as its pharmacological inhibition in treated endothelial cells reduced migration by 54 ± 7% (p < 0.001). Together, these data indicate that SS-hAFSC sEVs have multifactorial beneficial effects in a myocardial infarction setting

Experimental and simulation studies of the shape and motion of an air bubble contained in a highly viscous liquid flowing through an orifice constriction

This paper reports an experimental and computational study on the shape and motion of an air bubble, contained in a highly viscous Newtonian liquid, as it passes through a rectangular channel having a constriction orifice. The magnitude of the viscosity ratios, $\lambda$, and capillary numbers, CA, explored is high: 5.5 x 10$^{5}$ < $\lambda$ < 3.9 x 10$^{6}$ and 2.9 < Ca < 35.9 respectively. A multipass rheometer is used for the experimental work: air bubbles are suspended in 10 Pa s and 70 Pa s polybutene viscosity standards and passed through an orifice-plate geometry constructed within an optical flow-cell. High levels of bubble distortion are observed, including bubbles that resemble ‘crescent moons’. Simulation work is carried out using an implementation of the volume of fluid method in the freely-available finite-volume computational fluid dynamics code OpenFOAM. Quantitative data pertaining to the motion and shape of the bubble was extracted from both the experimental and simulation work. Initially, a good match between numerical simulation and experimental work could not be obtained: this problem was alleviated by changing the viscosity averaging method from an arithmetic mean to a logarithmically-weighted arithmetic mean. Medium- and high-resolution simulations using this new viscosity averaging method were able to match experimental data with coefficients of determination, R$^{2}$, typically 0.898 < R$^{2}$ < 0.985.Funding is gratefully acknowledged from the EPSRC, grant EP/N00230X/1

Management of Acute Particulate Fouling in a Titanium Dioxide Reactor System

The gas-phase manufacture of titanium dioxide is subject to acute fouling in the cooler unit located directly downstream of the reactor which quenches the reaction. A model of the cooler system was constructed, incorporating aspects of compressible flow, multimode heat transfer, fouling, and changes in geometry. This indicated that deposition could be very rapid. The effect of deposit layer buildup required measurement of the thermal conductivity of the porous layer; this was achieved using a novel testing device similar to that reported by Tan et al. (2006), for measuring the thermal conductivity of surface coatings. Active mitigation techniques are employed to reduce the effect of rapid fouling. The effectiveness of adding an erodent, in this case sand, to the flow was appraised by studying the breakup of deposit layers by impinging particles. The experimental conditions (high-temperature chlorine gas, high flow velocities) were simulated in cold experiments by matching the inertia and size of test particles to those of the sand. These studies showed that sand at the feed size would detach deposits, but could result in breakage of the sand particles. Mitigation efficiency is then determined by sand distribution and redistribution.Funding for VYL from Huntsman is gratefully acknowledged