An Experimental Study of Solid Particles Mixing in a Fluidized Bed, Using Image Processing Technique

In this paper، the effects of size and density on mixing of solid particles in a fluidized bed have been studied experimentally. For this purpose، a bed consisting of silica sands has been used. The mixing of particles in a two-layer bed has been studied. The lower layer consists of silica sands، while in the upper layer tracer sand particles with different shape، size، density، and color have been used. All events occurring on the bed surface are recorded by a camera above the bed and tracer particles are being tracked، using image processing technique. Particles being mixed in the bed are studied by studying the variation of the tracer particles concentration index with time. First، the mechanism of particle mixing in a two-layer fluidized bed was investigated. Then، the effect of the characteristics of mixing particles on mixing process was studied. The results show that increasing the tracer particle density (approaching the bed sands density)، enhances the penetration of tracer in the bed and reduces the tracer presence on the bed surface. Also، the size of sand particles has significant effect on mixing quality; it makes it possible to find a proper sand size to mix the particles with different densities.