Characterization of mono, binary, and ternary sphere packing

          This work presents the study of single phase fluid flow through a packed bed, where two type of fluids were used (air and water). Spherical glass particles were used as solid phase, the glass spheres were 0.9987, 0.7955, 0.6015, 0.509, 0.4210 cm in diameter. The bed was 7.64 cm in diameter and 15.15 cm in length.Many variables were studied in this packed bed. These variables included the packing porosity of bed (mono, binary, and ternary),type of fluid flow (water and air) and flow rate of fluid which were represented by Reynolds number, in order to study the effect of these variables on the pressure drop and friction factor.The range of Reynolds number used in this work for air flow through packed bed is 8.5- 707 and for water is 43-1467 Results showed that the pressure drop through the packed bed is highly sensitive to the packing porosity and inversely proportional to it, at maximum porosity (0.4508) the values of pressure drop range 6.1-25.8 Pa for air and 205.6-13900.7 Pa for water are less han those at  minimum porosity (0.3766), the pressure than those at  minimum porosity (0.3766), the pressure drop range value 15.5-596.6 Pa for air and 546-35815.6 Pa for water  The friction factor for binary size particles is less than those for mono size particles for the approximately near values of porosity, because the surface area of binary size particles is less than it for mono size particles, as the surface area increases the values of Reynolds number decreases which lead to increases the values of friction factor.At high flow rate (turbulent region) the friction factorReynolds number curves is approximately straight (at turbulent region the Reynolds number have insignificant effect on friction factor values).Also it was found that the friction factor increases with decreasing Reynolds number. The friction factor was expressed as a function of Reynolds number. It was found that the general equation, which governs the mono, binary and ternary is:A. for air flow through packed bed.