Hydrodynamic correlations with experimental results from cold mockup spouted beds for nuclear fuel particle coating

A cold mockup of a nuclear particle spouted bed coater is systematically studied over an experimental matrix of four particle radii, three cone angles, several gas (humidified air) flow rates, and four particle inventories. Spherical ZrO₂ particles of 300, 400, 500 and 650 μm with a tight distributed size are selected as surrogates for nuclear fuel particles due to their similar physical properties. Three spouted beds with 45, 60, and 75° cone angles are used. The gas flow rate spans the fully spouted condition to minimum spouted condition. As gas flow rate is lowered to 1.1∼1.2 Ums, the main frequency peak increases sharply. Main frequency peak of the pressure signal increases as particle size or static particle height inside the spouted bed or cone angle increase. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Annual Meeting and Fall Showcase (Cincinnati, OH 10/30/2005-11/4/2005).