AbstractThe experiments were carried out in a bench‐scale fluidised bed of 90 mm in diameter to determine the influence of pressure on fluidisation characteristics of Geldart A and B particles over the range of pressure 0.1–4.5 MPa. For Geldart B particles, the results indicate that minimum fluidisation velocity (umf) was found to decrease with pressure whilst bed voidage at umf was unaffected, and the bed expansion height increase with pressure at fixed value of gas velocity was observed for both Geldart B and A particles. For Geldart A particles, minimum bubbling velocity (umb) bed voidage at umb and dense phase voidage were found to increase obviously with pressure, but a slight influence of pressure on umf was observed. The prediction values of high‐pressure fluidisation characteristics from the references' correlations developed at pressure were in agreement with the experimental data. © 2012 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering