The average voidage, radial voidage and axial voidage distribution in ellipsoidal pellets bed layer were studied by experiments and Discrete Element Method (DEM) Simulation. A series of experiments were used to determine the collision parameters of DEM model. The influence of the bed geometry factor on the average voidage and the radial voidage of the bed layer were investigated, the distribution of axial voidage in the bed was observed under different bed height conditions. The results show that the pellet diameter and cylinder diameter are the critical factor affecting the bed voidage distribution. With the bed geometry factor increasing, the average voidage of the bed gradually decreased. When D/d(p) > 50, the average voidage of the bed approaches to a constant (0.292). The damped oscillation of the radial voidage distributes from the wall toward the center of bed, and there is a maximum value near the wall. When the total height of the bed is constant, ignoring the influence of edge effect, the axial voidage increased gradually and eventually tends to be constant. With the gradual increase of the bed height, the change rate of the voidage and the axial voidage at the same height gradually decreased. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.