Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol.90, No.6, 1479-1483, 2012
Resistance of wood pellets to low airflow
The pressure drop versus low airflow from 0.000117 to 0.1 m/s was measured across a fixed bed of wood pellets. Wood pellets were on average 6.2 mm in diameter and 12 mm in length. The moisture content of wood pellets ranged from 2.8% to 8.1%. Four equations, Darcy, Shedd, Hukill and Ergun representing flow versus static pressure drop for bulk granules were fitted to the experimental data. At airflows below 0.01 m/s, the predicted pressure drops using all four equations deviated from experimental data. This deviation was the largest for the Darcy equation and the smallest for Ergun equation. (c) 2011 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering