The role of particle‐particle interactions in bubbling gas‐fluidized beds of Geldart A particles: A discrete particle study

Discrete particle simulations are by now well established as an effective tool to study the mechanics of complex gas‐solid flows in gas‐fluidized beds. In this study, a state‐of‐the‐art discrete particle model is used to explore the role of particle‐particle interactions in bubbling gas‐fluidized beds of Geldart A particles. We find that the particle‐particle interactions, including inelastic particle‐particle collision; inter‐particle friction and slightly cohesive forces, only have a negligible effect on the hydrodynamics of bubbling gas‐fluidized beds of Geldart A particles. This is due to the fact that only a very small fraction of the energy input is dissipated during the non‐ideal particle‐particle interaction. We finally show that the selected drag correlation model significantly affects the bed hydrodynamics.