TRR 287:  BULK-REACTION - Reacting and moving granular assemblies with gas flow

• Subject Area: Thermal Engineering/Process Engineering ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Medicine ; Physics
• Term: since 2020
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422037413

The Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio BULK-REACTION explores the interaction of physical and chemical processes in reacting and moving densely-packed systems of thermally thick particles passed by a gaseous fluid. The motion of bulk solids is driven by gravity or mechanical agitation. Such reacting dense particle systems form the basis of a multitude of processes and are present in a wide variety of industrial sectors, such as the thermochemical treatment or conversion of bulk solids in the energy, process, chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries. These processes are indispensable for securing the supply of many granular products or the provision of heat and power in industrialized societies. BULK-REACTION combines the methods and expertise from reactive fluid mechanics with particle technology in a new multiscale approach, ranging from microscopic pores inside particles, to the void spaces between particles, up to complete systems of industrial scale. This requires a link between three-dimensional simulation and measurement techniques at all relevant scales by employing innovative models and methods. In this manner, it becomes possible to analyze and understand processes involving chemically reacting bulk solids at an unprecedented new level of detail in space and time. BULK-REACTION will have a strong societal and technological impact. It will form the scientific basis for new products, reactor concepts and process chain designs. It will become possible to precisely predict product quality, to enhance energy efficiency and to reduce CO2 emissions in these important process unit operations. The aims of BULK-REACTION can be summarized as follows: 1) Develop new or improve existing measurement techniques to generate data from inside reacting, dense granular assemblies passed by a gaseous fluid; 2) Provide measurement data (flow field, temperature and species distribution, particle trajectories) to explain the phenomena in reacting granular assemblies and to validate corresponding models; 3) Derive models that allow for a quantitative description of the underlying physical and chemical processes from the microscale (e.g. turbulent eddies, local processes within particles) up to the system scale (e.g., product quality); 4) Develop a novel, open-source Discrete Element Method (DEM) model framework able to describe, spatially and temporally resolved, chemically reacting processes in bulk solids. Although DEM has become a reliable tool for the description of purely mechanical phenomena within granular assemblies, groundbreaking new developments are needed to describe chemically reacting processes with DEM. The interdisciplinary team of BULK-REACTION builds upon the collaboration of leading research groups in the field of DEM for reactive systems in Bochum, with experts in the simulation and experimental analysis of energy-intensive particle processes in Magdeburg.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios

Current projects

• A01 - Experimental investigation of flow fields in the interstices of bulk particles using optical measurement techniques (Project Heads Lessig, Christian ;  Zähringer, Katharina )
• A02 - 3D-Measurements in dense granular assemblies using hyperpolarised Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Project Heads Hövener, Jan-Bernd ;  Speck, Oliver )
• A03 - Experimental investigation of the interactions between the flame and the particles in packed beds (Project Heads Beyrau, Frank ;  Fond, Benoît )
• A04 - Lattice Boltzmann simulations of reacting flows in small-scale static and moving beds of particles with complex shapes (Project Heads Thévenin, Dominique ;  Varnik, Fathollah )
• A05 - A probabilistic approach for incorporating small-scale gas-particle thermochemistry into DEM/CFD models of granular assemblies (Project Head Sewerin, Fabian )
• B01 - Particle tracking in bulk solids based on microwave multiple input multiple output systems (Project Heads Musch, Thomas ;  Rolfes, Ilona )
• B02 - Contact heat transfer and heat conduction in packed beds of edged particles (Project Head Tsotsas, Evangelos )
• B03 - Radiative heat exchange among non-uniformly distributed, polydisperse, complex shaped, moving and reacting solid objects within DEM/CFD (Project Heads Schiemann, Martin ;  Wirtz, Siegmar )
• B04 - Adaptive pore network modelling and experiments of thermochemical processes in single porous particles (Project Heads Diéguez Alonso, Alba ;  Kharaghani, Ph.D., Abdolreza )
• B06 - In-situ determination of heating and phase changes in microwave heated packed bed reactor (Project Heads Barowski, Jan ;  Vorhauer-Huget, Nicole )
• C01 - y tracking on the basis of positron emission tomography of particles and gases in bulk solids (Project Heads Fritsch, Miriam ;  Wiedner, Ulrich )
• C02 - Flow mixing, heat transfer and chemical reaction in packed and moving bed reactors (Project Heads Beyrau, Frank ;  van Wachem, Berend )
• C03 - Interaction of heat transfer and thermochemical processes in agitated granular assemblies: grate system and hearth furnace floor (Project Heads Scherer, Viktor ;  Schiemann, Martin )
• C04 - Model reduction of single particle models for coupled DEM/CFD simulations (Project Head Mönnigmann, Martin )
• C05 - A novel coupling approach for DEM/CFD simulations accounting for the heterogeneous and anisotropic nature of bulk solids (Project Head van Wachem, Berend )
• C06 - Hybrid model for the boundary surface between a packed bed and the downstream free flowing gas (Project Head di Mare, Francesca )
• C07 - Numerical simulation of moving and reacting bulk material passed by reacting gas flows (Project Heads Illana Mahiques, Enric ;  Scherer, Viktor ;  Wirtz, Siegmar )
• INF - Research Data Management of BULK-REACTION (Project Heads di Mare, Francesca ;  Thévenin, Dominique )
• MGK - Integrated research training group (Project Heads Mönnigmann, Martin ;  Zähringer, Katharina )
• S - Management of the open-source BULK-REATION DEM/CFD simulation platform (Project Head di Mare, Francesca )
• Z01 - Central tasks of the Collaborative Research Centre (Project Heads Scherer, Viktor ;  Thévenin, Dominique )

• Applicant Institution: Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg
• Co-Applicant Institution: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• Participating University: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel; Technische Universität Dortmund
• Spokespersons: Professor Dr.-Ing. Viktor Scherer, until 6/2024; Professor Dr. Dominique Thévenin, since 7/2024