CFD Based Qualification of Mixing Efficiency of Stirred Vessels
Authors
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Zoltán Till
AffiliationDepartment of Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Pannonia, H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem utca 10, Hungary
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Bálint Molnár
Affiliation
BorsodChem Zrt., H-3700 Kazincbarcika, Bolyai tér 1, Hungary
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Attila Egedy
Affiliation
Department of Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Pannonia, H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem utca 10, Hungary
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Tamás Varga
Affiliation
Department of Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Pannonia, H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem utca 10, Hungary
Abstract
In this work, we focus on the most crucial units in a chemical technology, the chemical reactors. Using a commercially available CFD software package, COMSOL Multiphysics, 3D mathematical models of a batch reactor with different impeller geometries have been investigated. The reasonable agreement between the experimental and simulation results indicates the validity of the developed CFD model. The effect of the impeller design, e. g. number of blades on the mixing efficiency is evaluated based on the simulation studies. The proposed measure to determine the energy efficiency of mixing (i. e. mixing index) is based on the calculated velocity field and energy usage. The information about the homogeneity of the mixed phase in the system can be extracted from the developed velocity field. Hence, we proposed histograms of velocity fluctuations on a logarithmic scale as an efficient tool to measure the achieved homogeneity of the phase in case of different impellers and rotational speeds.
