Determinação de equação empírica para predição da perda de carga no módulo de leito fixo de aulas práticas

Abstract

Due to the wide application and advantages of the phenomena of flow through porous media in industrial equipments, the acquaintance and control of the process have great relevance in the scope of Chemical Engineering. Head loss is the main coast factor in fixed-bed industrial processes, thus representing an essential topic for the formation of the professional engineer. This study aims to determine the fixed bed head loss in practical classes’ module in the Laboratory Unitary Operations at the UFPB by experimental data and theoretical equations, establishing a mathematical equation which predicts the head loss as a function of the applied volumetric flow. For this, parameters of bed, column, particle and fluid characterization were studied. The permeability and head load results were obtained based on Darcy’s and Ergun’s equations, respectively, and they were satisfactory in the theoretical determination of the parameters. Based on the experimental data, the polynomial equation was determined to predict the values of head loss as a function of the volumetric flows, which had in its validation values closer to the experimental ones than those obtained by the theoretical equations. In this way, the equation may assertively assist the student to determinate the head loss in the studied module in future experiments.