Effect of aspect ratio of elliptical stirred vessel on mixing time and flow field characteristics in the absence of baffles

Elliptical tanks were used as an alternative to circular tanks in order to improve mixing efficiency and reduce mixing time in unbaffled stirred tanks(USTs). Five different aspect ratios of elliptical vessels were designed to compare their mixing time and flow field. Computational fluid dynamics(CFD) simulations were performed using the k–ε model to calculate the mixing time and simulate turbulent flow field features, such as streamline shape, velocity distribution, vortex core region distribution, and turbulent kinetic energy(TKE) transfer. Visualization was also carried out to track the tinctorial evolution of the liquid phase. Results reveal that elliptical stirred tanks can significantly improve mixing performance in USTs. Specifically, the mixing time at an aspect ratio of 2.00 is only 45.3% of the one of a circular stirred tank. Furthermore, the secondary flow is strengthened and the vortex core region increases with the increase of aspect ratio. The axial velocity is more sensitive to the aspect ratio than the circumferential and radial velocity. Additionally, the TKE transfer in elliptical vessels is altered. These findings suggest that elliptical vessels offer a promising alternative to circular vessels for enhancing mixing performance in USTs.

Computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method simulation of stirred tank reactor for graphene production

Liquid phase exfoliation(LPE)process for graphene production is usually carried out in stirred tank reactor and the interactions between the solvent and the graphite particles are important as to improve the production efficiency.In this paper,these interactions were revealed by computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method(CFD-DEM)method.Based on simulation results,both liquid phase flow hydrodynamics and particle motion behavior have been analyzed,which gave the general information of the multiphase flow behavior inside the stirred tank reactor as to graphene production.By calculating the threshold at the beginning of graphite exfoliation process,the shear force from the slip velocity was determined as the active force.These results can support the optimization of the graphene production process.

Experimental and CFD studies of solid-liquid slurry tank stirred with an improved Intermig impeller

The improved Intermig impeller has been used in the seed precipitation tank in China, which could enhance the mixing and suspension of Al(OH)3 particles and the power consumption declined largely. The flow field, solids hold-up, cloud height, just off-bottom speed and power consumptions were investigated in solid-liquid mixing system with this new type of impeller by CFD and water experiment methods. Compared with the standard Intermig impeller, the improved one coupled with specially sloped baffles could promote the fluid circulation, create better solids suspension and consume less power. Besides lower impeller off-bottom clearance is good for solid suspension and distribution. The just-off-bottom speed was also determined by a power number criterion. Meanwhile, the predicted results were in good agreement with the experimental data.

Drawdown mechanism of light particles in baffled stirred tank for the KR desulphurization process

To improve the efficiency of the desulfurization process, the drawdown mechanism of light particles in stirred tank is studied in this paper. For both up and down pumping modes, the just drawdown speeds(Njd) of floating particles in transformative Kanbara Reactor(KR) are measured in one and four baffled stirred tanks experimentally. Then numerical simulations with standard k-ε model coupled with volume of fluid model(VOF) and discrete phase model(DPM) are conducted to analyze the flow field at the just drawdown speed Njd. The torques on the impeller obtained from experiments and simulations agree well with each other, which indicates the validity of our numerical simulations. Based on the simulations, three main drawdown mechanisms for floating particles, the axial circulation, turbulent fluctuation and largescale eddies, are analyzed. It's found that the axial circulation dominates the drawdown process at small submergence(S = 1/4 T and 1/3 T) and the large-scale eddies play a major role at large submergence(S = 2/3 T and 3/4 T). Besides, the turbulent fluctuation affects the drawdown process significantly for up pumping mode at small submergence(S = 1/4 T and 1/3 T) and for down pumping mode at large submergence(S = 2/3 T and 3/4 T). This paper helps to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the KR desulphurizer drawdown process in the baffled stirred tank.

Numerical Simulation of Gas-Liquid Flow in a Stirred Tank with a Rushton Impeller

The gas-liquid flow field in a stirred tank with a Rushton diskturbine, including the impeller region, was numerically simulatedusing the improved inner-outer iterative procedure. Thecharacteristic features of the stirred tank, such as gas cavity andaccumulation of gas at the two sides of wall baffles, can be capturedby the simulation. The simulated results agree well with availableexperimental data. Since the improved inner-outer iterative algorithmdemands on empirical formula and experimental data for the impellerregion, and the approach seems generally applicable for simulatinggas-liquid stirred tanks.

Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach to the Effect of Mixing and Draft Tube on the Precipitation of Barium Sulfate in a Continuous Stirred Tank

The effect of mixing on the precipitation of barium sulfate in a continuous stirred tank is simulated numerically with different feeding location, feed concentration, impeller speed and residence time through solving the standard momentum and mass transport equations in combination with the moment equations for crystal population balance. The numerical method was validated with the literature data. The simulation results including the distribution of the local supersaturation ratio distribution in the precipitator, mean crystal size and coefficient of variation under different operating conditions compared well with experimental data in the literature. The effect of the presence of a draft tube on precipitation were also investigated, and it is suggested that the installation of a draft tube increased the mean crystal size, in general agreement with experimental work in the literature.

Numerical Study of Solid-Liquid Two-Phase Flow in StirredTanks with Rushton Impeller(Ⅱ) Prediction of Critical Impeller Speed

Three-dimensional solid-liquid flow is mathematically formulated by means of the 'two-fluid' approach and the two-phase k-ε-AP turbulence model. The turbulent fluctuation correlations appearing in the Reynolds time averaged governing equations are fully incorporated. The solid-liquid flow field and solid concentration distribution in baffled stirred tanks with a standard Rushton impeller are numerically simulated using an improved 'inner-outer'iterative procedure. The flow pattern is identified via the velocity vector plots and a recirculation loop with higher solid concentration is observed in the central vicinity beneath the impeller. Comparison of the simulation with experimental data on the mean velocities and the turbulence quantities of the solid phase is made and quite reasonable agreement is obtained except for the impeller swept volume. The counterpart of liquid phase is presented as well.The predicted solid concentration distribution for three experimental cases with the average solid concentration up to 20% is also found to agree reasonably with the experimental results published in the literature.

Simulation of Solid Suspension in a Stirred Tank Using CFD-DEM Coupled Approach＊

Computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method(CFD-DEM) coupled approach was employed to simulate the solid suspension behavior in a Rushton stirred tank with consideration of transitional and rotational motions of millions of particles with complex interactions with liquid and the rotating impeller. The simulations were satisfactorily validated with experimental data in literature in terms of measured particle velocities in the tank.Influences of operating conditions and physical properties of particles(i.e., particle diameter and density) on the two-phase flow field in the stirred tank involving particle distribution, particle velocity and vortex were studied.The wide distribution of particle angular velocity ranging from 0 to 105r·min 1is revealed. The Magnus force is comparable to the drag force during the particle movement in the tank. The strong particle rotation will generate extra shear force on the particles so that the particle morphology may be affected, especially in the bio-/polymer-product related processes. It can be concluded that the CFD-DEM coupled approach provides a theoretical way to understand the physics of particle movement in micro- to macro-scales in the solid suspension of a stirred tank.

Study on macro-instability in stirred tank

Macro-instability(MI)is an important natural phenomenon affecting the mixing performance in stirred tank significantly,which results from movement and evolution of large eddies.Factors associated with MI frequency in mixing operation and energy dissipation related to MI were reviewed.Flow pattern in turbulent regime contains many coherent structures,which have much energy vortices and may result in flow field MI.Adjustment of coherent structure and controlling MI may contribute to energy saving and good mixing performance.Controlling methods for MI was prospected.

Large Eddy Simulation of Liquid Flow in a Stirred Tank with Improved Inner-Outer Iterative Algorithm

In this study, the large eddy simulation technique was applied on the flow in a baffled stirred tank driven by a Rushton turbine at Re=29000. The interaction between the rotating impeller and the static baffles was accounted for by means of the improved inner-outer iterative algorithm. The sub-grid scale model was a conventional Smagorinsky model. The numerical solution of the governing equations was conducted in a cylindrical staggered grid. The momentum and the continuity equations were discretized using the finite difference method, with a third-order QUICK scheme used for convective terms. The phase-resolved predictions were compared with the experimental data of Wu and Patterson and good agreement was observed for both the mean and the turbulence quantities. They were much better than the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes model including the Reynolds Stress Model for simulating the turbulence. The study also suggests the feasibility of LES in combination with the improved inner-outer iterative algorithm for the simulation of turbulent flow in stirred tanks.

Numerical Simulation of Gas Holdup Distribution in a Standard Rushton Stirred Tank Using Discrete Particle Method

The discrete particle method was used to simulate the distribution of gas holdup in a gas-liquid standard Rushton stirred tank. The gas phase was treated as a large number of bubbles and their trajectories were tracked with the results of motion equations. The two-way approach was performed to couple the interphase momentum exchange. The turbulent dispersion of bubbles with a size distribution was modeled using a stochastic tracking model, and the added mass force was involved to account for the effect of bubble acceleration on the surrounding fluid. The predicted gas holdup distribution showed that this method could give reasonable prediction comparable to the reported experimental data when the effect of turbulence was took into account in modification for drag coefficient.

Flow Field Around Rushton Turbine in Stirred Tank by Particle Image Velocimetry Measurement

In this paper, particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the mean and root meansquare(RMS) velocity in the stirred tank with six-flat blade Rushton turbine and with no baffles. Two typesof motion patterns were studied. One was that the impeller runs at constant speed, the other was that the impellerruns at time-dependent speed and in a periodic way. The emphasis of the paper was on the comparison of meanand RMS velocity vector maps and profiles between these two types of motion patterns, and especial attention waspaid to the comparison of the mean velocity, time-averaged RMS velocity, phase averaged RMS velocity betweenthe constant 3 RPS (revolution per second) and time-dependent operation. The Reynolds number was between 763and 1527. The study explained the mechanism that time-dependent RPS is more efficient for mixing than that ofconstant RPS.

Effect of Temperature on Gas Hold-up in Aerated Stirred Tanks

Gas holdups in ambient gassed and hot sparged systems with multiple modern impellers and the effect of temperature on gas holdup are reported. The operating temperature has a great impact on gas holdup though the gas dispersion regime in the hot sparged system is similar to the ambient gassed condition. The gas holdup under the elevated temperature and the ambient gassed operation is successfully correlated. With the same total gas flow rate and power input, the gas holdup in the hot sparged system (say near the boiling point) is only about half of that in the ambient system. The results imply that almost all existing hot sparged reactors have been designed on the basis of incorrect estimates of the gas holdup during operation.

Numerical Study of Solid-Liquid Two-Phase Flow in Stirred Tanks with Rushton Impeller (Ⅰ) Formulation and Simulation of Flow Field

The critical impeller speed, N_(JS), for complete suspension of solidparticles in the agitated solid-liquid two-phase system in baffled stirred tanks with a standardRushton impeller is predicted using the computational procedure proposed in Part Ⅰ. Three differentnumerical criteria are tested for determining the critical solid suspension. The predicted N_(JS)is compared with those obtained from several empirical correlations. It is suggested the mostreasonable criterion for determining the complete suspension of solid particles is the positive signof simulated axial velocity of solid phase at the location where the solid particles are mostdifficult to be suspended.

Experimental study of power consumption, local characteristics distributions and homogenization energy in gas–liquid stirred tank reactors

In this paper, the power consumption, the vertical local void fraction and the local gas–liquid interfacial area are investigated in the aerated stirred tank reactors(STRs) equipped with a rigid-flexible impeller. Meanwhile, the regressive correlation based on power consumption and interfacial area is proposed. Then a novel homogenization energy(HE = RSDPtm) expression based on power consumption and local interfacial area is redefined and used to indicate the mixing efficiency. The optimal operating mode is selected based on the change of the HE value. This paper can provide research ideas for structural optimization of stirred reactors.

Numerical optimization for blades of Intermig impeller in solid-liquid stirred tank

The multiphase flow in the solid-liquid tank stirred with a new structure of Intermig impeller was analyzed by computational fluid dynamics(CFD).The Eulerian multiphase model and standard k-ε turbulence model were adopted to simulate the fluid flow,turbulent kinetic energy distribution,mixing performance and power consumption in a stirred tank.The simulation results were also verified by the water model experiments,and good agreement was achieved.The solid-liquid mixing performances of Intermig impeller with different blade structures were compared in detail.The results show that the improved Intermig impeller not only enhances the solid mixing and suspension,but also saves more than 20% power compared with the standard one.The inner blades have relatively little influence on power and the best angle of inner blades is 45°,while the outer blades affect greatly the power consumption and the optimized value is 45°.

Modeling and Control of a Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor Based on a Mixed Logical Dynamical Model

A novel control strategy for a continuous stirred tank reactor(CSTR)system,which has the typical characteristic of strongly pronounced nonlinearity,multiple operating points,and a wide operating range,is initiated from the point of hybrid systems.The proposed scheme makes full use of the modeling power of mixed logical dy- namical(MLD)systems to describe the highly nonlinear dynamics and multiple operating points in a unified framework as a hybrid system,and takes advantage of the good control quality of model predictive control(MPC) to design a controller.Thus,this approach avoids oscillation during switching between sub-systems,helps to relieve shaking in transition,and augments the stability robustness of the whole system,and finally achieves optimal(i.e. fast and smooth)transition between operating points.The simulation results demonstrate that the presented ap- proach has a satisfactory performance.

Analysis of Turbulence Structure in the Stirred Tank with a Deep Hollow Blade Disc Turbine by Time-resolved PIV

The turbulence structure in the stirred tank with a deep hollow blade(semi-ellispe) disc turbine(HEDT) was investigated by using time-resolved particle image velocimetry(TRPIV) and traditional PIV.In the stirred tank,the turbulence generated by blade passage includes the periodic components and the random turbulent ones.Traditional PIV with angle-resolved measurement and TRPIV with wavelet analysis were both used to obtain the random turbulent kinetic energy as a comparison.The wavelet analysis method was successfully used in this work to separate the random turbulent kinetic energy.The distributions of the periodic kinetic energy and the random turbulent kinetic energy were obtained.In the impeller region,the averaged random turbulent kinetic energy was about 2.6 times of the averaged periodic one.The kinetic energies at different wavelet scales from a6 to d1 were also calculated and compared.TRPIV was used to record the sequence of instantaneous velocity in the impeller stream.The evolution of the impeller stream was observed clearly and the sequence of the vorticity field was also obtained for the identification of vortices.The slope of the energy spectrum was approximately-5/3 in high frequency representing the existence of inertial subrange and some isotropic properties in stirred tank.From the power spectral density(PSD) ,one peak existed evidently,which was located at f0(blade passage frequency) generated by the blade passage.

Influence of impeller diameter on overall gas dispersion properties in a sparged multi-impeller stirred tank

The impeller configuration with a six parabolic blade disk turbine below two down-pumping hydrofoil propellers, identified as PDT + 2CBY, was used in this study. The effect of the impeller diameter D, ranging from0.30 T to 0.40T(T as the tank diameter), on gas dispersion in a stirred tank of 0.48 m diameter was investigated by experimental and CFD simulation methods. Power consumption and total gas holdup were measured for the same impeller configuration PDT + 2CBY with four different D/T. Results show that with D/T increases from 0.30 to 0.40, the relative power demand(RPD) in a gas–liquid system decreases slightly. At low superficial gas velocity VSof 0.0078 m·s-1, the gas holdup increases evidently with the increase of D/T. However, at high superficial gas velocity, the system with D/T = 0.33 gets a good balance between the gas recirculation and liquid shearing rate, which resulted in the highest gas holdup among four different D/T. CFD simulation based on the two-fluid model along with the Population Balance Model(PBM) was used to investigate the effect of impeller diameter on the gas dispersion. The power consumption and total gas holdup predicted by CFD simulation were in reasonable agreement with the experimental data.