Abstract Rotary drums can show different granular flow regimes each one with its own specific flow behavior, which increase the complexity in their study. The way particles move inside the rotary drum is directly related to the mass and energy transfer rates, and consequently to the process performance. Thus, an experimental investigation regarding the transition between different flow regimes inside a rotary drum was carried out in the present work. To the best of our knowledge, the hysteresis phenomenon was observed for the first time in the transition between cataracting-centrifuging regimes, which was shown to be dependent on the physical properties of the particles such as sphericity, density and particle-wall friction coefficient. A new expression for the centrifuging critical rotation speed was proposed in this work.

Spouted beds, originally invented in Canada by Mathur and Gishler (1955) as an alternative to fluidized beds for handling coarse particles, are now widely studied in a variety of physical operations, such as drying, coating and granulation. In this work the particle velocity, minimum spouting flow rate and characteristic fluid-dynamic curves of the spouted bed were obtained using a Eulerian granular multiphase model. The computational work was significantly reduced for axisymmetric gas-solid flows. The experimental data obtained in two spouted bed configurations, conical-cylindrical and two-dimensional, were compared with the simulated results, showing good agreement

The spouted bed has been used in drying, granulation, catalytic polymerization, residue treatment and coating of several materials. Its success is attributed to its solids circulation characteristics and excellent gas-particle contact. In this work the pattern of solids and gas flows in a spouted bed was numerically simulated using a Eulerian multiphase model. The computational work was significantly reduced for axisymmetric gas-solids flows. The simulated velocity and voidage profiles were compared with results obtained in our laboratory (with a two-dimensional spouted bed using soybean seed) and by He et al. (1994) (with a cylindrical spouted bed and glass sphere). The simulated results showed good agreement with the experimental data for both geometries studied.

In previous work, it was observed that the covering of soybean seeds with bacteria and micronutrients enhances vigorous growth of the plant thereby avoiding use of ammoniacal fertilizers. In the spouted bed covering can be done by pulverization of the coater slurry on the soybean seeds using a pneumatic atomizer. The optimum thickness of the cover allows the fundamental gaseous interchanges for germination and provides the ideal conditions for bacterium activity. The objective of this work was to study the influence of the process variables on thickness of the cover. A simulation of the mass distribution of seeds was obtained using a population balance model. Through the results obtained the operational conditions under which the coating layer distribution were determined has the greatest uniformity.