Experimental investigation of the hydrodynamics of chip-like particles in a flat-base spouted bed

• The spouting behavior of chip-like particles is detailed in PIV experiments. • Spout deflection and incoherence are observed with chip-like particles. • Minimum spouting velocity is influenced by particle shape and packing state. • Flat-base spouted beds are not suitable for chip-like particle mixing. Despite the broad applications in the chemical engineering fields, the spouting behavior of chip-like particles in the spouted beds is still limited from the experimental scope. In the current study, the minimum spouting velocity, spout instability including spout incoherence and spout deflection, and particle mixing are investigated based on the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurement. Two kinds of particles (chip-like and spherical) are adopted in this work and the effect of spouting gas velocity and static bed height on the spouting behavior is discussed. The spout incoherence and spout deflection are post-processed with two simple quantitative methods, respectively. The results show that the minimum spouting velocity both for spherical and chip-like particles increases with the increase of the static bed height. The particle velocity distribution (x- or y-direction) is affected significantly by the particle shape, gas spouting velocity and static bed height. For spout incoherence, the blockage height almost linearly increases in a period for both spherical and chip-like particles under different case settings. Finally, three main mixing zones are classified in the dense bottom region, spouting mixing zone, downward movement mixing zone and unmixing/dead zones. The current work is beneficial to the further investigation of chip-like particles in the spouted beds.