AN EQUATION-OF-MOTION FOR AN INCOMPRESSIBLE NEWTONIAN FLUID IN A PACKED-BED

The application of a volume average Navier-Stokes equation for the pre diction of pressure drop in packed beds consisting of uniform spherica l particles is presented. The development of the bed permeability from an assumed porous microstructure model is given. The final model is q uasi-empirical in nature, and is able to correlate a wide variety of l iterature data over a large Reynolds number range. In beds with wall e ffects present the model correlates experimental data with an error of less than 10%. Numerical solutions of the volume averaged equation ar e obtained using a penalty finite element method.