Design of impeller blades for intensification on fluid mixing process in a stirred tank

Background: Many studies reported that the nonlinear geometry could create a longer turbulence production region and higher turbulence intensities compared with conventional geometry. The self-similarity impeller based on Hibert curves was introduced to intensify the fluid mixing process in this work. Methods: The mixing performance of Rushton turbine (RT) impeller and self-similarity impeller were evaluated using experimental analyzes and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with detached eddy simulation (DES) approach. The chaotic mixing characteristics, mixing time, power consumption, trailing vortices structures, turbulence intensity, turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate and velocity magnitude distribution were investigated. Significant findings: Results showed that self-similarity impeller can effectively increase the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) and multiscale entropy (MSE) of mixing system, shorten the fluid mixing time and decrease the mixing number (eta) compared with RT impeller under the constant power consumption, and an improvement was achieved in mixing efficiency with the increase of self-similar iteration number of self-similarity impeller. Meanwhile, the reductions in the power number (Np) of 34.6% with self-similarity 1 impeller and 51.9% with self-similarity 2 impeller were achieved in a wide Re range compared with RT impeller. Two large recirculation zones and trailing vortices were easy to form at the suction side of rectangular impeller blade, which can be destroyed and decomposed into smaller ones through the jet flows produced by the concave-convex structure of self-similarity impeller. In addition, self-similarity impeller can improve the uniformity of fluid turbulence intensity, enhance the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate and increase the axial circulation capacity in the stirred tank, and increasingly so with the self-similar iteration number.

Automated summary

This study compared the performance differences between conventional impeller and self-similarity impeller in fluid mixing process through experimental and computational analyses. The results showed that the self-similarity impeller had better mixing efficiency and lower power consumption compared to the conventional impeller.