Pergamon Chemical Engineerin9 Science, Vol. 52, No. 11, pp. 1733- 1741.

1997
:~': 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
Plh S0009-2509(97)00008-0 0009-2509/97 $17.00 + 0.00

Mixing performance induced by coaxial

flat blade-helical ribbon impellers rotating
at different speeds
Philippe A. Tanguy, *t Francis Thibault, t
Edmundo Brito-De La Fuente, * Teodoro Espinosa-Solares * and
Alberto Tecante *
t NSERC-Paprican Chair and URPEI, Department of Chemical Engineering, l~cole
Polytechnique, P.O. Box 6079, Station Centre-ville, Montreal, Canada H3C 3A7;
Departamento de Alimentos y Biotecnologia, Facultad de Quimica, Conjunto "E",
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City 04510, D.F., Mexico

(Received 26 February 1996; accepted 5 November 1996)

Abstract--The mixing performance (pumping, dispersion capabilities, power consumption) of

a new dual impeller mixer composed of a disc turbine and a helical ribbon impeller mounted on
the same axis but rotating at different speeds is investigated. The methodology is based on
a blend of experimental measurements and 3D numerical simulations in the case of Newtonian
and non-Newtonian shear-thinning fluids. It is shown that the dual impeller mixer outperforms
the standard helical ribbon in terms of top-to-bottom pumping when the fluid rheology evolves
during the process. The power consumption of this new mixer is also studied which allows to
derive a generalized power curve. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Keywords: Viscous mixing; dual impeller; helical ribbon; flat blade; power draw; laminar
regime; 3D simulation; experimental work; shear-thinning fluids.

INTRODUCTION the mixing duty required, the operating speed, the

Mixing operations in which the rheological properties
of the medium evolve over the course of mixing are
very common in the process industries (Tatterson
1991). The evolving rheology may be due to two main
factors: a chemical (or biochemical) reaction, and
a physical change in the nature of the phase which is
usually related to structural modifications in the fluid
(flocculation, gelification, dispersion...). The viscos-
ity of the final product is often much larger than the
viscosity of the individual ingredients, sometimes by
several orders of magnitude. Depending on the type of
components in the mixture, non-Newtonian proper-
ties such as non-linear viscosities, thixotropy, normal
stresses and yield stress, may also develop. Numerous
examples of such behavior can be found in the polym-
erization and fermentation processes and also in the
production of mineral slurries at high solids concen-
tration.
The most common mixing systems used for low
viscosity fluids are based on high-speed blade turbines
in baffled vessels. Several impeller designs are avail-
able such as fiat blade turbines, pitched blade turbines
and hydrofoils, the selection of which is a function of
* Corresponding author.
1733
discharge characteristics and the power draw. At
higher viscosity, these remote clearance impellers
lose their efficiency because high shear conditions
are difficult to achieve due to the extremely large
power demand. Moreover, if the mix develops non-
Newtonian properties, the use of high shear impellers
becomes detrimental to the macromixing pattern in
the vessel. Dead zones and caverns may appear induc-
ing segregated mixing regions.
To address the problem of mixing performance
with non-Newtonian fluids, close-clearance impellers
like helical ribbons rotating at low speed are normally
preferred. These impellers usually promote good
homogenization by providing a more efficient top-to-
bottom mixing as compared to the standard turbines.
The make-down of rheologically evolving systems
creates challenging problems in industrial practice.
Indeed, it is seldom possible to change the impeller or
modify its geometry over the course of the prepara-
tion step. When the viscosity builds up during the
make-down, two mixing mechanisms are usually re-
quired: first an intensive dispersion at low viscosity,
then a good homogenization at higher viscosity. Such
mixers unfortunately do not exist. Therefore, one has
to resort to a system which represents the best pos-
sible compromise in terms of performance over the
1734 P. A. Tanguy
whole range of viscosity and rheological behavior
found in the process.
Several basic designs have been proposed in the
literature to address this requirement. In practice, the
possible combination of impellers and kinematics that
can be considered is extremely wide. The following
systems are commonly found in industry:
- - M u l t i p l e intermeshing kneading paddles moun-
ted on a carousel (planetary mixer).
- - A main centered impeller associated with off-
centered ancillary turbines located close to the
vessel surface.
Co-axial impellers of a similar type rotating at
the same speed.
Co-rotating or contra-rotating coaxial impellers
of different types with different speeds.
Most of them have been developed from empirical
considerations and industrial experience and their
actual mixing performance has rarely been assessed
carefully.
Fig. 1. Photo of the dual impeller mixer.
et al.
In the present work, we consider a dual coaxial
impeller composed of a flat blade (Rushton) tur-
bine and an helical ribbon impeller (Fig. 1) both
rotating clockwise but at different speeds. This
system has been selected because it associates a disc
turbine known to provide good dispersion capabili-
ties (Rushton turbine), and a close-clearance impel-
ler with good homogenization properties (helical
ribbon). The objective is to investigate the flow
generated by such an hybrid system for non-Newto-
nian fluids, evaluate the power consumption and es-
tablish the power curve. The methodology will be
based on a dual numerical/experimental approach in
the spirit of our past contributions in mixing process
engineering.
NUMERICAL METHODOLOGY
We consider the fluid flow generated by the coaxial
impellers in the mixing vessel. If we use the classical
Eulerian viewpoint (Laboratory viewpoint), the flow
is governed by the classical momentum and mass
 Mixing performance of a dual impeller
conservation equations, namely,
p ~-~+vgradv =-gradp+div(2tW) (1)
div v = 0 (2)
where v is the velocity, p the pressure, p the density,
q the viscosity and ? = 1/2 [grad v + (grad v)r]. In
this work, we consider a shear-thinning fluid with
a power law viscosity, namely,
r / = k? "-1 (3)
where K and n are the consistency index and the
shear-thinning index, respectively.
The mixer dimensions are illustrated in Fig. 2. The
boundary conditions are as follows:
- - a t the vessel wall and bottom: Vw = 0
- - a t each impeller i: Vo = n N i D i
- - a t the free surface: Vz = 0
where Ni and rl are the rotational speed and the
radius of the impeller i, respectively.
The above equations are solved with a standard
three-dimensional Galerkin finite element method
combined with an augmented Lagrangian approach
to deal with the non-Newtonian viscosity (Tanguy
et al., 1984). A special treatment is, however, required
to address the complexity of the impeller kinematics.
• 210 mm
Fig. 2. Mixer dimensions.
1735
As the relative position of the two impellers varies
with time, the flow solution cannot be obtained with
a single finite element mesh and remeshing should be
made at each time step. Considering the number of
time steps necessary to describe reasonably the impel-
lers kinematics in such a mixer, the numerical
modeling becomes a formidable task in terms of man-
power and time. In order to cope with this problem,
several alternatives have been proposed in the litera-
ture:
- - the representation of the impeller and the baffles
by lumped sources and sinks (Pelletier and
Schetz, 1986);
- - a Lagrangian method with moving nodes (De-
mirdzic and Peric, 1990);
- - a domain decomposition strategy with sliding
meshes (Perng and Murty, 1993);
- - t h e use of imbedded F E M (also known as virtual
FEM).
Although the first three methods may provide some
insight on the flow structures in non-trivial mixing
geometries, their practical applicability is still limited
to mildly complex geometric situations such as, for
instance, an impeller rotating in a baffled vessel. The
first one relies on an approximation of the impeller
motion and the baffles through the imposition of
forces that are difficult to evaluate from a practical
standpoint. This approach has been the first one to be
~i
$mm
unto
10 mm
16 mm
20mm
 1736 P. A. Tanguy et al.
proposed in the literature. The second technique is
based on an evolving mesh topology that accounts for
both moving and fixed parts. Remeshing is unfortu-
nately necessary when the grid is too distorted and
irregular.
The third method, which belongs to the class of
domain decomposition methods, is becoming popular
in commercial software. It is based on the splitting of
the flow domain into two or more regions (for in-
stance, one for the impeller and one for the baffles).
Meshes are generated separately in each region and
the equations of change are resolved in these domains
using as boundary conditions the velocity field given
by the resolution in the adjacent domains and the
physical boundary conditions. The meshes are al-
lowed to slide with respect to each other according to
the mixing kinematics, and the continuity of the solu-
tion between two adjacent meshes is imposed approx-
imately by interpolation. Despite its popularity, the
method lacks generality and is limited practically to
two domains, one cylindrical inner domain rotating in
an annular domain. Furthermore, from a mathemat-
ical standpoint, there is no theoretical error analysis
available for this method and its convergence proper-
ties are unknown.
The virtual FEM that we propose to use in this
work is of a different nature and stands on sound
mathematical principles. Briefly, the idea is to repres-
ent each impeller by a series of control nodes located
on its surface and to impose the rotational speed at
these nodes using constrained optimization tech-
niques (Lagrange multipliers and penalty techniques).
From a practical standpoint, only the vessel is meshed
and the control nodes are moved in the mesh with
time according to the position of the impellers. There
is absolutely no requirements to have these nodal
constraints coinciding with finite element nodes. The
nodes are simply located inside the elements at their
actual position and they are treated as optimization
constraints. The total number of control nodes to
Viewpoint
Laboratory
~ Rushton
turblne
Fig. 3. Flow description viewpoint used in the simulations.
depict accurately the impeller is a function of the
mesh. The finer the mesh, the better the description.
This method is fairly general and can be applied to
any simulation problem involving moving bodies in
enclosures. The reader is referred to Bertrand et al.
(1996) for a thorough description of the algorithms
and mathematics of the method.
The selection of elements for three-dimensional in-
compressible flows is a very important aspect in finite
element simulation because of the impact of the poly-
nomial approximation bases on the computational
time and accuracy of the results. In the present work,
we use the enriched linear tetrahedral P+ - Po ele-
ment (Bertrand et al., 1992), an element particularly
well-suited for irregular or curved topologies which
presents all the necessary guarantees of numerical
stability and convergence. This is especially important
considering the complexity of the mixing pattern at
hand. The mesh composed of 22,492 elements
(141,788 velocity degrees of freedom) was selected
after it was proved that the flow results were stable.
The mesh included the helical ribbon while the Rush-
ton turbine was dealt 'virtually' with approximately
1500 pointwise constraints. The number of con-
straints was chosen heuristically. It represents in this
problem the best compromise between cost and com-
putational accuracy.
From a practical standpoint, we adopted the helical
ribbon impeller viewpoint for the resolution of the
flow equations, i.e. the vessel was allowed to rotate at
NHRand the Rushton turbine at NRush NItR(Fig. 3). In
such a Lagrangian frame of reference, the equations of
change must be modified to account for two extra
forces, the centrifugal force and the Coriolis force
(Tanguy et al., 1992).
EXPERIMENTS
The mixer is composed of a glass vessel (8 1) in
which a coaxial, co-rotating dual impeller as shown in
Fig. 1 has been installed. The impellers are mounted
Helical ribbon
 Mixing performance of a dual impeller 1737
on a drive shaft attached to a variable speed motor.
The drive shaft is, in fact, an assembly of two concen-
tric shafts with a gear box. The gear ratio is fixed by
design at 1:6.2, i.e. the Rushton turbine rotates 6.2
times faster than the helical ribbon impeller. This
ratio was selected such that the operating window of
each individual impeller corresponds to their usual
rotational speed range in fermentation applications,
namely:

Helical ribbon: 0 to 100 rpm

Rushton turbine: 0 to 620 rpm

This experimental rig has been instrumented such

that measurements of torque and rotation speed can
be made. The torquemeter is installed on the driving
shaft close to the motor. It measures the total torque
induced by the two impellers. The rotational speed is
measured with an optical encoder which reads the
speed of the Rushton turbine.
Several fluids were prepared, namely 6 Newtonian
fluids consisting of aqueous solutions of corn syrup
and 6 shear-thinning fluids consisting of various solu-
tions of CMC, Gellan, and Xanthan gums in water.
The viscosity of the Newtonian fluids ranges from 3.5
to 71.6Pas and their density is 1384kg/m 3. The
shear-thinning index of the non-Newtonian fluids va-
ries from 0.26 to 0.64, the consistency index between
2.95 and 21.55 Pas" and their density is 1020 kg/m 3.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We will present in this section two series of re-
suits. We will first consider the flow structures and
dispersion characteristics of the system investigated as
they were obtained by numerical simulation. We will
then present a comparison of the numerical predic-
tions of the power consumption with measurements
and derive the power curve of the proposed dual
impeller.
We show in Figs 4(a) and (b) the dispersion pattern
induced by the dual impeller and by the helical ribbon
only, at NnR = 20 rpm and r / = 10 P a s (Re = 1.6).
This pattern was obtained by computing the trajecto-
ries of a cluster of 10 particles injected in the upper
part of the vessel at mid-distance between the drive
shaft and the vessel wall. The effect of the Rushton
turbine on the dispersion efficiency is remarkable.
Without the disc impeller, the particles tend to keep in
an aggregated state, following the standard top-to-
bottom pumping inherent to this class of impeller Fig. 4. (a) Dispersion pattern induced by the dual impeller
(Tanguy et al., 1992). The intense flow generated by mixer. (b) Dispersion pattern induced by the helical ribbon
the turbine alters significantly the flow field in the only.
lowest half of the helical ribbon region, enhancing the
macromixing in the vessel bulk. It should be added
here that with shear-thinning fluids, we observed that the helical ribbon, triggering the appearance of segre-
the dispersion efficiency seems to be enhanced. An gation between the two impeller agitated volumes. In
attempt to quantify this observation will be presented order to visualize this phenomenon, we present in
later in the article. Fig. 5 the dispersion of a cluster of particles injected
In the turbine region, the strong radial discharge in the Rushton impeller region (NnR = 20 rpm). After
flow almost completely offsets the axial pumping of a rapid dispersion, the particles tend to circulate
 1738 P. A. Tanguy et al.
0.04

0.03

"=
0.02

o.oo
o0/\ .

~
>
-0.01
1 #
<X
F
-0.03 ........ ,,,, I . . . . . . . . . . . .
-0.12 -0.08 -0.04 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.12

(a) Position (m)

0.04

0.03

0.02

•- - 0.01
o
o.oo
-o.ol

-0.02
.,r , V
-0.03

Fig. 5. Circulation in the vicinity of the Rushton turbine. -0.12 -0.08 -0.04 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.12

(b) Position (m)

tangentially in the influence zone of the turbine and
the axial pumping is not sufficient to make them
attracted quickly by the helical ribbon.
We show in Figs 6(a) and (b) the vertical pumping
(axial velocity) profiles obtained with and without the
disc turbine for a Newtonian fluid (n = 1) and
Fig. 6. (a) Axial velocity profile at n = 1. (b) Axial velocity
profile at n = 0.33. (black symbols = dual impeller--white
symbols = helical ribbon only).
120

a shear-thinning fluid of power law index n = 0.33. 100

Q
This profile was plotted at 3 cm above the edge of the .R = 12 R P M

Rushton turbine along a diameter, the zero position (P 80

corresponding to the mixing shaft axis. Surprisingly, it _E

I'- 60
can be noted that the Rushton turbine enhances the c- NNR = 20 R P M
°Oi _ ~= _..--------4
pumping down phenomenon in the vessel core region 40

(roughly one-third of the diameter). This effect com- -I

20
bined with that shown in Fig. 4(a) makes us believe
that mixing volumes are possibly segregated in the 0 k i I ' ' i i I k i

bottom part of the mixing vessel. This suggests that
a first modification to the design could be to use
pitched blade turbine instead of flat blade turbine to
break this flow structure. In Fig. 6(b), the top-to-
bottom pumping zone is located along the shaft, con-
firming earlier results (Tanguy et al., 1992). The pump-
ing pattern induced by the dual impeller appears
insensitive to rheology which makes the proposed
mixer a promising candidate for the mixing of
rheologically evolving fluids.
We show in Fig. 7 the variation of the numerical
circulation time with the shear-thinning index at
NnR = 12 rpm and NnR = 20 rpm for the dual impel-
ler mixer. These results were obtained by the method
described in Tanguy et al. (1992). It can be observed
that the circulation time increases with shear-thinning
and a decreasing rotational speed. For the Newtonian
limit case, we can note that the data of Fig. 7 are in
0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00
Power law Index (n)
Fig. 7. Variation of the circulation time with the shear-
thinning index at two revolution speeds.
agreement with the usual rule stating that the prod-
uct of the circulation time and the rotational speed
is constant for a given impeller, even if in our study,
we use two different impellers with two different
speeds. This result was not a priori obvious consider-
ing the complex hydrodynamic interactions between
the two impellers and the possibility of flow structures
inducing longer residence time in certain areas of the
vessel.
The above numerical predictions of the velo-
city field can be post-processed to obtain some of the

mixer design parameters. Using a standard macro-
scopic energy balance, the power can be computed by
Po = ffro z: df~
where r is the viscous stress tensor.
It is then possible to plot the classical mixing power
curve (power number vs Reynolds number) for vari-
ous revolution speeds. We recall that in mixing, the
power number is defined by
Po
Np = pNaD 5
and the Reynolds number by
pD 2 N
Re -
r/
As for the definitions of a characteristic speed and
a characteristic length needed for the evaluation of
Np and Re, we use those of the helical ribbon for sake
of consistency with the previous results. It should be
noted here that the Reynolds number has the same
value regardless whether the helical ribbon or the disc
turbine is selected as the reference due to the fact that
the product ND 2 is constant. This special property is
however less useful for Np. A characteristic diameter
has still to be specified.
We compare in Fig. 8 a comparison of the numer-
ical prediction and the experimental measurement of
power consumption obtained with the dual impeller
for Newtonian and a shear-thinning fluid (n = 0.57).
In this figure, the Reynolds number for the power-law
fluid is defined as
pD2 N 2-"
Repl -- K (7)
The agreement is fairly good considering the
measurement uncertainty existing on both the experi-
100000
10000
1000
z ~
too
10
1 i i i ilJrll i i i IIII~L
1 E-O2 1 E-01
Repl
Fig. 8. Comparison of the experimental and numerical
power consumption (black square = numerical prediction,
n = l--white square =experimental data, n = 1--black
triangle = numerical prediction, n = 0.57 white tri-
angle = experimental data, n = 0.57).
Mixing performance of a dual impeller 1739
mental data and the numerical predictions, each of
which is estimated at 5%.
We show in Fig. 9 the numerical power curve of the
(4)
dual impeller and that obtained for the helical ribbon
impeller only in the Newtonian case. These curves are
parallel and their slope is - 1, which confirms that
the mixing regime is laminar. The shift between the
two curves reflects the additional power input re-
quired by the Rushton turbine in the dual impeller
mixer. The power constant Kp of the dual impeller,
defined as the product of Np times Re, is equal to 412
as compared to a value of 168 for the helical ribbon
alone. This power consumption difference is due to
(5)
the Rushton impeller. A quick power calculation
showed that in this dual impeller mixer, the Kp value
of the turbine is around 70, a standard value for
a Rushton turbine in a baffled vessel. Therefore, this
(6) indicates that the value of Kp does not seem to be
modified by the presence of the helical ribbon.
It might be interesting to confirm numerically the
impact of the turbine on the power consumption. We
present in Fig. 10 the density of energy dissipation in
a vertical cut of the mixer at n = 0.57. This result was
obtained by computing the spatial distribution of the
magnitude of the scalar field of the macroscopic en-
ergy ]bz : 7 II. It can be seen that the highest dissipation
regions are located at the wall clearance and around
the Rushton turbine, i.e. where the rates of deforma-
tion are the most significant.
Finally, one useful piece of information in mixer
design is the knowledge of the generalized power
curve (Tatterson, 1991). This master curve is
presented in Fig. 11 for the dual impeller mixer con-
sidered. It was obtained following the same method as
in Tanguy et al. (1996), taking as the characteristic
parameters those of the helical ribbon impeller. In this
figure, the generalized Reynolds number is defined as
pD2N 2 n
Re~ (8)
KKs
where K~ is the Metzner-Otto constant. We recall
here that the Metzner and Otto approach stipulates
100000
10000
1000
lOO
i i i iklll
lO
1E+00 1E+01
1 i r I ,,11,1 , I , II,lll I I b ,,,,
1E-02 1E-01 1E+00 1E+01
Re
Fig. 9. Effect of the flat blade turbine on the power con-
sumption in the Newtonian case (black square = dual im-
peller-white triangle = helical ribbon only).
 1740 P.A. Tanguy et al.

Fig. 10. Density of energy dissipation scaleis from white (high dissipation) to black (low dissipation).

10000 CONCLUSION
The objective of this paper was to investigate the
1000 mixing conditions (pumping, dispersion capabilities,
power consumption) induced by a dual impeller mixer
ZL 100 composed of a disc turbine and a helical ribbon impel-
ler mounted on the same axis but rotating at different
10 speeds. The methodology was based on a blend of
experimental measurements and numerical simula-
1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i i bll,i
tions. The computational work used a new finite ele-
1E-02 1E-01 1E+O0 1E+01 1E+02 ment method consisting of depicting the discharge
flow of the rotating impellers by means of velocity
Reg
constraints.
Fig. ll. Power master curve for the dual impeller mixer It was shown that the dual impeller mixer outper-
(black symbols= numerical predictions white symbols forms the standard helical ribbon when the fluid
= experimental data). rheology changes during the mixing duty. The
power constant of this new mixer is higher than
that obtained with the helical ribbon but the ac-
that the effective rate of deformation in a mixer is tual power consumption could be decreased since
proportional to the revolution speed. The constant of it might be possible to operate the mixer at a
proportionality that we obtained for the dual mixer is lower speed while maintaining the same mixing effi-
33. We suspect that this factor might be a function of ciency. This, as well as the study of the impact of the
the impeller speed ratio. This is left for further invest- speed ratio on mixer performance, are left for further
igation. investigation.
 Mixing performance of a dual impeller 1741
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