FRICTION FACTOR

The frictional force can be expressed in terms of a friction factor. This leads to
equations describing the flow of a fluid past a collection of particles. There are several
approaches to treating fluid flow through packed beds. The most successful of these is the
Ergun Equation, which describes flow in both the laminar and turbulent regimes. This method
treats the packed column as a compact irregular bundle of tubes. Modifying the theory for
straight tubes not only takes into account the irregularity of the tubes, but yields relationships
similar to those derived for straight tubes as well. This analysis assumes several conditions.
First, we assume that the particles are packed in random; there is no channeling in the packed
bed. Channeling occurs when the fluid flowing through the packed bed finds a preferred
path through the bed. We also assume that the diameter of the packing is much smaller than
the diameter of the column as well. The maximum recommended particle diameter is onefifth of the column diameter. We assume that velocity, particle diameter and void fraction
behaves as a bulk behavior and hence we can use an average values.
The Ergun equation is

150
+1.75
Res

OR

2
150 Vs (1 ) 1.75 LV s (1 )
+
2
3
Dp
3
Dp

Ergun defined the friction factor; fp depends on Vs (superficial velocity), pressure drop and
packed bed length.

P D p 3
2
L V s 1

At different flow rate Ergun determined the general form of the friction factor.
Where
P =Presure drop
L= the height of the bed
=the fluid viscosity
=Void space
V = the fluid superficial velocity
s
Dp =the particle diameter
= the density of the fluid
s = sphericity of the particle.

The Ergun equation tells us a number of things. It tells us the pressure drop along the length
of the packed bed given some fluid velocity. It also tells us that the pressure drop depends on
the packing size, length of bed, fluid viscosity and fluid density.
Packing material, Berl saddles