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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Parametric study of gas−liquid two-phase flow field in horizontal stirred tank

Based on Fluent software,the gas−liquid two-phase flow in the horizontal stirred tank was simulated with SST k−ωturbulence model,Eulerian−Eulerian two-fluid model,and multi-reference flame method.The mixing process in the tank was calculated by tracer method.The results show that increasing the rotating speed or gas flow is conducive to a more uniform distribution of the gas phase and accelerates the mixing of the liquid phase.When the rotating speed exceeds 93 r/min,the relative power demand remains basically constant.The change in the inclination angle of the upper impeller has minimal effect on the gas phase distribution.When the inclination angle is 50°,the relative power demand reaches the maximum.An appropriate increase in the impeller distance from the bottom improves the gas holdup and gas phase distribution but increases the liquid phase mixing time.

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.

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°.

Large Eddy Simulations of Flow Instabilities in a Stirred Tank Gen-erated by a Rushton Turbine

The aim of this work is to investigate the flow instabilities in a baffled, stirred tank generated by a single Rushton turbine by means of large eddy simulation （LES）. The sliding mesh method was used for the coupling between the rotating and the stationary frame of references. The calculations were carried out on the ＂Shengcao-21C＂ supercomputer using a computational fluid dynamics （CFD） code CFX5. The flow fields predicted by the LES simulation and the simulation using standard κ-ε model were compared to the results from particle image velocimetry （PIV） measurements. It is shown that the CFD simulations using the LES approach and the standard κ-ε model agree well with the PIV measurements. Fluctuations of the radial and axial velocity are predicted at different frequencies by the LES simulation. Velocity fluctuations of high frequencies are seen in the impeller region, while low frequencies velocity fluctuations are observed in the bulk flow. A low frequency velocity fluctuation with a nondimensional frequency of 0.027Hz is predicted by the LES simulation, which agrees with experimental investigations in the literature. Flow circulation patterns predicted by the LES simulation are asymmetric, stochastic and complex, spanning a large portion of the tanks and varying with time, while circulation patterns calculated by the simulation using the standard κ-ε model are symmetric. The results of the present work give better understanding to the flow instabilities in the mechanically agitated tank. However, further analysis of the LES calculated velocity series by means of fast Fourier transform （FFT） and/or spectra analysis are recommended in future work in order to gain more knowledge of the complicated flow phenomena.

Retrospect and Perspective of Micro-mixing Studies in Stirred Tanks

Mixing problems are most likely encountered and sometimes can be severe in scaling-up projects. Micro-mixing is an important aspect for fast or quasi-instantaneous reactions. Poor micro-mixing might produce more undesired by-products, leading to higher purification costs. This paper gives an extensive review and analysis of micro-mixing studies in single- and multi phase stirred tanks. The relevant experiment techniques, micro-mixing models and nurherical approaches are critically reviewed and analyzed with remarks and perspectives. The reported studies on two-phase micro-mixing experiments and on the impact of the presence of the dispersed phases on turbulence have been limited to a narrow range of conditions. More importantly, disparities widely exist among different reports. Both Lagrangian and Eulerian models are based on oversimplified assumptions, which may lead to uncertainties or even unrealistic results. A heuristic model, which is from the perspective of CFD （computational fluid dynamics） and can cover the whole spectrum of scales and also focus on every subrocess, is desired in the future.

Numerical simulation of micro-mixing in gas–liquid and solid–liquid stirred tanks with the coupled CFD-E-model

The coupled CFD-E-model for multiphase micro-mixing was developed,and used to predict the micro-mixing effects on the parallel competing chemical reactions in semi-batch gas–liquid and solid–liquid stirred tanks.Based on the multiphase macro-flow field,the key parameters of the micro-mixing E-model were obtained with solving the Reynolds-averaged transport equations of mixture fraction and its variance at low computational costs.Compared with experimental data,the multiphase numerical method shows the satisfactory predicting ability.For the gas–liquid system,the segregated reaction zone is mainly near the feed point,and shrinks to the exit of feed-pipe when the feed position is closer to the impeller.Besides,surface feed requires more time to completely exhaust the added H+solution than that of impeller region feed at the same operating condition.For the solid–liquid system,when the solid suspension cloud is formed at high solid holdups,the flow velocity in the clear liquid layer above the cloud is notably reduced and the reactions proceed slowly in this almost stagnant zone.Therefore,the segregation index in this case is larger than that in the dilute solid–liquid system.

Numerical Simulation of Laminar Flow Field in a Stirred Tank

Stirred tanks are used extensively in process industry and one of the most commonly used impellers in stirred tanks is the R.ushton disk turbine. Surprisingly few data are available regarding flow and mixing in stirred-tank reactors with Rushton turbine in the laminar regime, in particular the laminar flow in baffled tanks.In this paper, the laminar flow field in a baffled tank stirred by a standard R.ushton turbine is simulated with the improved inner-outer iterative method. The non-inertial coordinate system is used for the impeller region, which is in turn used as the boundary conditions for iteration. It is found that the simulation results are in good agreement with previous experiments. In addition, the flow number and impeller power number calculated from the simulated flow field are in satisfactory agreement with experimental data. This numerical method allows prediction of flow structure requiring no experimental data as the boundary conditions and has the potential of being used to scale-up and design of related process equipment.

Study on the solid-liquid suspension behavior in a tank stirred by the long-short blades impeller

We investigated the solid–liquid suspension characteristics in the tank with a liquid height/tank diameter ratio of 1.5 stirred by a novel long-short blades(LSB) impeller by the Euler granular flow model coupled with the standard k–ε turbulence model. After validation of the local solid holdup by experiments,numerical predictions have been successfully used to explain the influences of impeller rotating speed,particle density, particle size, liquid viscosity and initial solid loading on the solid suspension behavior,i.e. smaller particles with lower density are more likely to be suspended evenly in the liquid with higher liquid viscosity. At a low impeller rotating speed(N), increase in N leads to an obvious improvement in the solid distribution homogeneity. Moreover, the proposed LSB impeller has obvious advantages in the uniform distribution of the solid particles compared with single Rushton turbine(RT), dual RT impellers or CBY hydrofoil impeller under the same power consumption.

Effect of pitched short blades on the flow characteristics in a stirred tank with long-short blades impeller

This work focuses on the design improvement of the long-short blades(LSB)impeller by using pitched short blades(SBs)to regulate the flow field in the stirred vessel.After mesh size evaluation and velocity field validation by the particle image velocimetry,large eddy simulation method coupled with sliding mesh approach was used to study the effect of the pitched SBs on the flow characteristics.We changed the inclined angles of the SBs from 30°to 60°and compared the flow characteristics when the impeller was operated in the down-pumping and up-pumping modes.In the case of down-pumping mode,the power number is relatively smaller and vortexes below the SBs are suppressed,leading to turbulence intensification in the bottom of the vessel.Whereas in the case of up-pumping mode,the axial flow rate in the center increased significantly with bigger power number,resulting in more efficient mass exchange between the axial and radial flows in the whole vessel.The LSB with 45°inclined angle of the SBs in the up-pumping mode has the most uniform distributions of flow field and turbulent kinetic energy compared with other impeller configurations.