Experimental study of the particle flow in a circulating fluidized bed using a phase doppler particle analyser: A new post-processing data algorithm

This study focused on the measurement of solid mass flux in the riser of a CFB cold pilot. The investigations were carried out using a Phase Doppler Particle Analyser (PDPA). Inconsistencies in PDPA results were observed when investigating flows with high particle densities. It appears that the performance of the measuring technique was affected by the optical thickness of the measured medium, thus producing substantial overestimation of the global solid phase quantity (e.g. solid mass flux). To determine the origin of these inconsistencies, the measuring system was subjected to complete recalibration. It was found that in flows with high particle densities, noisy Doppler signals tend to be split into several parts by the burst detector system, thus producing inconsistencies in the number of particles counted. The parameters associated with the splitting events were analysed, and a post-processing algorithm was developed to limit PDPA measuring errors. The aim of the post-processing algorithm was to rebuild the data and to recover the original measurements. The reconstitution process was applied to solid mass flux measurements in a CFB cold pilot.