Granular matter is a large collection of small particles and is ubiquitous in nature. Examples include sand dunes, flow of avalanches, crater formation. Solid particles are abundant in industry also, either in the form of raw material or finished product. The overall efficiency of a plant handling granular matter is typically much less than those involved with only liquid or gaseous raw material and products, because of the difficulty associated in handling of bulk solids. The main focus of our research group is to understand the flow mechanism of granular suspension in two configurations,
(a) in horizontal channel / pipe and (b) in fluidized bed
Flow of Dilute Granular Suspension in Horizontal Channel
Flow of granular suspension, commonly termed as pneumatic transport, can broadly be classified in to two categories: (a) dilute and (b) dense phase. The focus of our research group is the transition of the flow between the dilute and the dense regimes. The transition of the flow is a combined effect of the interaction between the fluid phase turbulence and particle fluctuations. The group is involved in understanding the influence of inter-particle and fluid particle interaction on the transition between the dilute to dense phase transport of granular suspension through horizontal channels.
Fluidised Beds
Fluidized beds are widely used in process industries. One of the key issues is segregation of particles in fluidized beds. The focus of our research is to understand the segregation mechanism in gas-solid fluidization using experiments and numerical simulations. The group uses open source codes such as OpenFoam coupled with CFDEM and LIGGGHTS, and LAMMPS.
Lab scale pneumatic transport system
Lab scale fluidized beds
High speed Phantom camera
Laser
Necessary instrumentation
The team in IIT Bombay is now equipped to undertake research activities with turbulent suspension.