Flow of Air Bubbles in a Packed Bed

Enrique Soto
Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Alicia Aguilar-Corona
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
Morelia, Michoacán,
México

Amós Benjamín Domínguez Gómez
Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Madero
Tamaulipas, México

Roberto Zenit
Instituto de Investigaciones en Materiales
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

When bubbles form with a packed bed of particles,
these may acquire two different sizes depending on the flow rate.

An air stream is injected into a packed bed immersed in water. The refractive index of the water an the packed bed are quite similar and the edges of the spherical particles can be seen. Two distinctive regimens can be observed. The first one, for low air flow rates, which is characterized by the percolation of the air thought the interstitial space among particles. And the second one, for high air flow rates, which is characterized by the accumulation of air inside the packed bed without percolation, it can be observed that the bubble pull apart the particles apart. Furthermore, for the first case the position of the particles remains constant while for the second one a circulation of particles is induced by the bubbles flow.

References

Gostiaux, L., Gayvallet,H. and Géminard, J.-C. 2002 Dynamics of a gas bubble rising through a thin immersed layer of granular material: an experimental study. GranularMatter, 4,39-44.  

Reporters and Editors

Reporters may freely use this image. Credit: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) (2010).