This paper presents the results of a series of experiments on the packed bed combustion of coke particles, including temperature and gas concentration profiles in the bed and measurements of particle size, void fraction and sphericity on both fuel and ash. An earlier numerical model is extended to include the effects of ash on the bed void fraction and other properties as well as on heat conduction within the bed and heat and mass transfer between particulate and gas. The model is shown to give good agreement with experimental data. It is demonstrated that the physical properties of ash-particle size, void, and sphericity-can have a considerable influence on other bed processes.