Complex Fluids and Granular Flow

Research activity

Granular flow. Segregation phenomena in bubbling fluidized bed gasifiers. Oscillatory patterns in granular flows.

Past Works (Journal papers & Conference Proceedings)

  • Prati A., Selmo F., Nigro A., Baratieri M., and Larcher M. «Experimental and numerical analysis of a bubbling fluidized bed gasifier for renewable energy production.» In: Proceedings of the XII International Conference of on Computational Heat and Mass Transfer ICCHMT2019, (2019).
  • Selmo F., Prati A., Nigro A., Baratieri M., and Larcher M. «Full and simplified set of dimensionless parameters for Fluidized beds hydrodynamic scaling: preliminary simulations.» In: Proceedings of the XII International Conference of on Computational Heat and Mass Transfer ICCHMT2019, (2019).
  • A. Köhler, D.C. Guío-Peréz, Prati A., M. Larcher, and D. Pallarès. «Rheological effects of a gas fluidized bed emulsion on falling and rising spheres.» Powder Technology, 393, 2021, pp. 510-518.
  • D.C. Guío-Peréz, A. Köhler, A. Prati, D. Pallarès, F. Johnsson. «Effective drag on spheres immersed in a fluidized bed at minimum fluidization – influence of bulk solids properties.» The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering. 2022
  • A. Prati, A. Nigro, F. Selmo, G.R. Pisaturo, M. Righetti, M. Baratieri and M. Larcher. «Experimental and numerical analysis of a bubbling fluidized bed gasifier for renewable energy production.» Submitted to Water, 202x.
  • A. Prati, M. Larcher, James T. Jenkins, and L. La Ragione. «Particle bed morphology under oscillating flexible plates». Submitted to Physical Review Fluids (Rapids). 202x.

Theses

  1. PhD Thesis (PhD Programme in Sustainable Energy and Technologies, UNIBZ): “Fluid-dynamic characterization of wet and dry fluidized beds. Lab-scale investigation of mono-and-polidispersed mixtures”.
  2. Bachelor Thesis: “Tecnologie di conversione della biomassa: esperimenti su modello di letto fluidizzato a scala di laboratorio”(Lorenzo Pecoraro), 2021, University of Trento and Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
  3. Master Thesis: “Experimental and numerical analysis of industrial gasifiers for renewable energy production” (Francesco Selmo), 2019, University of Trento and Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
  4. Master Thesis: “Experimental analysis on particle size distribution in fluidized bed reactors” (master student: Michele Pellizzari), 2019, University of Trento and Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.

Ongoing projects

  • numerical simulations of fluidised bed for thermochemical conversion processes;
  • analysis of the segregation processes in dry granular flow driven by gravity;
  • experimental measurements on both dry and wet fluidised granular beds;
  • particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) and refractive index matching (RIM) techniques;
  • experiments on oscillatory patterns in granular flows

People involved

  • Michele Larcher
  • Anna Prati

Collaboration

  • Politecnico of Bari (Italy): professor Luigi La Ragione
  • Cornell University (USA): professor James T. Jenkins
  • Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden): professor David Pallarès, Carolina Guío-Peréz, Anna Köhler