A STUDY OF AN AIR-LIFT PUMP FOR SOLID PARTICLES

Abstract

This paper treats the performance of a low head airlift pump used to lift solid particles. The flow inside the vertical pipe of the air-lift pump is a three-phase flow, i.e. air, water and solid mixed flow. It can be analysed based on the existing theory for an air-water two-phase flow. By coupling the momentum equation of flow and the equation of motion of a single solid particle, the problem can be solved numerically. The results of computation agree with those of experiments quantitatively. The performance of a typical air-lift pump for solid particles is calculated using the present method.