Chaotic advection in a twin cam mixer under various operating conditions

A twin cam mixer (TCM) system equipped with two triangular cams is built in this study. The effect of operating conditions on chaotic advection in TCM is investigated. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is employed to investigate the flow characteristics under co- and counter-rotating modes. Based on the good agreement between simulation and experimental results, chaotic advection under various operating conditions is investigated numerically. To evaluate the chaotic advection, time series Poincare section, recording point density, and combined mixing index are proposed. The results show that counter-rotating mode is superior to co-rotating mode regarding chaotic advection. A more global chaotic advection can be obtained with the cams in TCM rotating at a higher average angular velocity, higher disturbance quantity, and lower disturbance frequency. The chaotic advection in TCM under different waveform protocols has no significant difference, but it is all better than that under constant protocol.

Automated summary

A twin cam mixer system equipped with two triangular cams was studied to investigate the effect of operating conditions on chaotic advection. Particle Image Velocimetry was used to study flow characteristics under different operating modes. The results showed that counter-rotating mode outperformed co-rotating mode, and more global chaotic advection could be achieved with higher average angular velocity, higher disturbance quantity, and lower disturbance frequency.