Terminal settling velocity of solids in the pseudoplastic non-Newtonian liquid system – Experiment and ANN modeling

The terminal settling velocity (TSV) of solid particles is experimentally determined in fluidizing columns. In monodispersed (single component) systems, the bed expansion behavior has been experimented with using pseudoplastic liquids. The terminal velocity is calculated from the plot of bed voidage (ε) vs. liquid velocity and extrapolating to ε = 1.0. An empirical correlation is developed for determining the TVS with acceptable statistical accuracy. Successful applicability of ANN modeling has been reported. After comparing with existing literature, it was found that the present work yielded better results (based on the statistical error parameters) than the previous literature