Assignment 05

Chemical Engineering Fluid Dynamics (Ch. E 222)

Title: Static Mixer

Submitted To: Mr. Usman Asghar

Submitted By: Muhammad Usama Zubair

Roll No: UW-19-Ch. E-BSc-025

Semester: 4th

Department of Chemical Engineering

Wah Engineering College University of Wah
7th May, 2021
Q. No. 1: What is the Static/motionless Mixers? Differentiate b/w their different
types.

Static Mixers

A static mixer is a precision engineered device for the continuous mixing of fluid materials,
without moving components. Normally the fluids to be mixed are liquid, but static mixers can also
be used to mix gas streams, disperse gas into liquid or blend immiscible liquids. The energy needed
for mixing comes from a loss in pressure as fluids flow through the static mixer. One design of
static mixer is the plate-type mixer and another common device type consists of mixer elements
contained in a cylindrical (tube) or squared housing. Mixer size can vary from about 6 mm to 6
meters diameter. Typical construction materials for static mixer components include stainless steel,
polypropylene, Teflon, PVDF, PVC, CPVC and polyacetal. The latest designs involve static
mixing elements made of glass-lined steel.

Different types of motionless mixers:

Examples: Kenics, Sulzer, Ross etc.

❖ a twisted strip
❖ twisted by 180 degree along its length,
❖ clockwise and counter-clockwise elements arranged alternatively,
❖ the inlet edge of an element is perpendicular to the outlet edge of the previous one (shear in
the tube cross-section)
❖ different l/d ratios - cause different turbulence and pressure drop
Mixing mechanism of Kenics mixers:

❖ multiple divisions and recombination

❖ change of the direction of rotation
❖ causing shear in the tube cross section
❖ strong radial mixing
❖ no (or modest) mixing longitudinally (certain velocity differences)

Fig.01 Radial mixing: caused by cross-sectional displacements and rotation (secondary flow)

Mixing mechanism of Kenics mixers:

Fig.02 division rearrangement & recombination

Ross LPD Mixer:

Crossing half ellipses, slanted with different angles, different cross-sectional orientation
Fix Mix Mixers:

Twisted strips, similar to the Kenics mixer, but they are conical ones with inclination

Fig.06 Fix Mix Mixers

QNO :02 How we can find the power consumption for agitation problem by
using flow number and power number.

Power Number:
Power consumption was measured in mechanically agitated contactors of internal diameter 0.3 m,
0.57 m, 1.0 m and 1.5 m. Tap water was used as a
liquid in all the experiments. The impeller speed
was varied in the range of 0.3-13.33 r/s. Three
types of impellers, namely disc turbine (DT),
pitched-blade downflow turbine (PTD) and
pitched blade up flow turbine (PTU) were
employed. The ratio of the impeller diameter to
vessel diameter (D/T) and the ratio of impeller
blade width to impeller diameter (W/D) were varied over a wide range. The effects of impeller
clearance from the tank bottom (C), blade angle (φ), total liquid height (H/T), number of impeller
blades (nb) and blade thickness (tb) were studied in detail. Power consumption was measured using
a torque table. Power number was found to have a strong dependence on the flow pattern
generated by the impeller. Unlike, DT and PTU, the power number of PTD was found to increase
with a decrease in clearance. The PTD (T/3) was found to have the lowest power number in all
the vessels and the power number increased with either a decrease or an increase in the impeller
diameter from T/3. The dependence of power number on impeller diameter was found to be more
prominent when the D/T ratio was more than 0.3

Flow number
Flow number (FN), in cycles, is the number of load cycles at which the HMA mix enters the
tertiary zone (i.e., onset of tertiary flow) under vertical repeated loading, which corresponds to the
mi value of the strain rate (i.e., minimum value of the curve slope).

The mixing vessel used is shown in Figure 4. The vessels for the measurement of power

consumption are flat-bottom cylindrical ones of inner diameter D = 185 and 200 mm. Three kinds

of baffled conditions were mainly used: unbaffled, four baffles of (i.e., the standard

baffled condition), and fully baffled. The baffles were plate type. The paddle, pitched paddle,

Rushton turbine, propeller, and pfaudler impellers were symmetrically set up at one-half the level

of the liquid depth

The pfaudler, anchor, and helical-ribbon impellers were set up slightly above the bottom (bottom

clearance of 1 mm). For the measurement of the power consumption, the liquids used were desalted
water and varying starch-syrup solutions . The liquid was filled to the height equal to the vessel

diameter (H = D). The power consumption was measured with the shaft torque T and rotational

speed (n) by using two types of torque meter. The range of rotational speed was from 60 to 540 rpm

to avoid a large vortex at the center of the free surface of the liquid.