Experimental and numerical investigation to elucidate the fluid flow through packed beds with structured particle packings

The present paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the dispersion of the gaseous jet flow and co-flow for the simple unit cell (SUC) and body-centred cubic (BCC) configuration of particles in packed beds. The experimental setup is built in such a way that suitable and simplified boundary conditions are imposed for the corresponding numerical framework, allowing simulations to be conducted under conditions similar to the experiments. A porous plate is utilized for co-flow to achieve uniform velocity, and fully developed flow is ensured for jet flow. The SUC and BCC particle beds consist of 3D-printed spheres, with non-isotropy near the walls mitigated by placing half-spheres at the channel walls. Flow velocities are analyzed at the exit of the particle bed for both configurations over multiple pores at various particle Reynolds numbers. Stereo particle image velocimetry is arranged to obtain velocities over the entire exit region of the packed bed instantaneously. The numerical method employs an advanced immersed boundary technique with adaptive mesh refinement. Results show good agreement between numerical and experimental studies for the SUC configuration, while some differences emerge for the BCC configuration, although the general flow velocity distribution is consistent.