Liquid Holdups and Abnormal Flow Phenomena of the Gas-liquid Counter-current Flow in Packed Beds under Simulating Conditions of the Flow in the Dropping Zone of a Blast Furnace

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to measure the total holdup, gas pressure drop, flooding velocities and liquid distribution at low superficial velocities of liquid for various degree of wetting between liquids and solids.Correlations for both static and dynamic holdups and a flooding diagram that are valid for non-wetting as well as wetting flow were obtained.Instability of the bed, in which a transition from a stable to a fluidized bed occurred, was observed before the onset of flooding in some of the experiments. A diagram was developed to discriminate the fluidization from the flooding in relation to the flow conditions. This diagram indicated that in blast furnaces the fluidization of the coke bed is likely to start before the onset of flooding by the slag.