Study of a hydrofluidization system using computational fluid dynamics and a discrete element method I. Flow field and velocity profiles

ORONA, J. D.; ZORRILLA, S. E.; PERALTA, J. M.

Florianopolis

Congreso; XX Congresso Brasileiro de Engenharia Quimica; 2014

Associacao Brasileira de Engenharia Quimica, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Hydrofluidization (HF) is a method of chilling and freezing of foods that pumps a refrigerating liquid upwards through orifices into a vessel creating submerged jets and thus results in extremely high surface transfer phenomena. The objective was to model the flow field and the velocity profiles of spheres in a HF system using computational fluid dynamics and a discrete element method. The HF system consisted in a cylindrical vessel of 100-mm diameter and 100-mm height and a perforated plate with orifices of 3-mm diameter. The samples were 13 potato spheres of 10-mm diameter. The operative variables were temperature (-5°C, -10°C), distance among the orifices (10 mm, 20 mm) and average velocity of the fluid at the orifices (0.59 m/s, 1.18 m/s). The results are promising to obtain relevant information about the momentum transfer and the dynamics of samples being processed within a HF system.