MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY, FLOW AND SCALEUP IN

THE COROTATING DISC SCRAPED SURFACE HEAT

EXCHANGER
ALAN FRIIS

BioCentmm-DTU
Building 221

AND

PETER SZABO' and TORBEN KARLSON

Danish Polymer Center

Department of Chemical Engineering
Building 423
Technical University of Denmark
BK-2800Lyngby, Denmark

Accepted for Publication June 25, 2002

ABSTRACT

A comparison of two digerent scale corotating disc scraped sulface heat

exchangers (CDHE)wasperformed experimentally. Thefindings were compared
to predictions from a finite element model.
Wefind that the model predicts well the flow pattern of the two CDHE's
investigated. The heat transferperformance predicted by the m d e l agrees well
with experimental observations for the laboratory scale CDHE whereas the
overall heat transfer in the scaled-up version was not in equally good agreement.
The lack of the model to predict the heat transfer pelformance in scale-up
leads us to identifL the key dimensionless parameters relevant for scale-up.

INTRODUCTION

Thermal processing is a key unit operation in production of processed

foods. Historically a large variety of techniques have been developed to perform
either batch or continuous processes suitable for heat treatments ranging in
severity from pasteurization to sterilization. In recent decades the application and
development of continuous process equipment have emerged from the traditional

I Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed.

Journal of Food Process Engineering 25 (2002) 285-305. AN Rights Reserved.

OCopyright 2ooZ by Food & Nutrition Press, Inc., Trumbull. Connecticut. 285
286 A. FRIIS. P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

applications involving rather low viscous homogeneous food products into a

larger variety of food products. This is driven by the development of custom
design heat exchangers suitable for limited applications. The scraped surface
heat exchanger (SSHE) represents a generation of heat exchangers applicable for
processing of heterogeneous liquid foods with high viscosity. A particular
example of a custom designed SSHE is the corotating disc scraped surface heat
exchanger (CDHE). The CDHE was invented by Tadmor (1979, 1980) for use
in melting and mixing of polymeric materials. Later Tadmor (1985) suggested
applications of the CDHE in food processing. In collaboration with J. Adler-
Nissen of the Department of Biotechnology, Technical University of Denmark
the first ever-working prototype was constructed. Compared to traditional SSHE
designs the CDHE differs fundamentally by having rotating heating surfaces and
a stationary scraper. This is the opposite of the traditional design where the
heating surface is stationary and a rotating device performs scraping and mixing
simultaneously (Friis 1994). By controlling the product flow and the frequency
of the heating surface rotation processing conditions can be obtained where the
discs drag along more fluid than is introduced at the inlet. As verified
theoretically and experimentally by Edelist and Tadmor (1983) this results in a
flow reverse to the rotation direction in parts of the processing chamber. The
advantage of the reverse flow lie in an increased nonmechanical mixing that
ensures improved heat transfer with a minimum of mechanical damage to the
product being processed (Friis 1994). The present work on the CDHE extends
previous experimental and theoretical studies by Friis (1994) and Borgbjerg and
Kolte (1995) and leads to a greater understanding of the CDHE as a processing
unit in food production.
The present article is devoted to the flow, heat efficiency and scale-up in
the CDHE. The remainder of the article is divided into three parts. The
Materials and Methods section describes the CDHE and the basic physical
model. Also included in this section is the numerical solution technique and
verification thereof. The results are presented in the Results and Discussions
section. These include numerical model predictions and comparison with
experiments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The Corotating Disc Scraped Surface Heat Exchanger

As illustrated in Fig. 1 the CDHE consists in the simplest configuration of
two hollow discs mounted on a rotating shaft, which is fitted closely into a
barrel. A blockade, which separates the inlet from the outlet, is attached to the
stationary barrel. Furthermore the blockade works as a scraping device which
 A:A

J d
outlet

108 mm
125 mm
4.75 mm

FIG. 1. SYSTEM DIAGRAM FOR THE LABORATORY SCALE COROTATING DISC SCRAPED SURFACE HEAT EXCHANGER (LSCDHE) !i
288 A. FRIIS, P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

keeps the discs clean. The processing chamber is enclosed by the discs, the
shaft, the barrel and the scraper and has the form of an annular channel with a
rectangular cross section profile. As a heat source, superheated water is lead
through the hollow discs. Rotating the discs in the direction of the main flow of
product through the processing chamber is referred to as co-current operation
while the opposite rotation direction is referred to as counter-current operation
(Friis and Adler-Nissen 2000).

Theory and Mathematical Model

The flow, pressure and temperature fields in any geometry are governed by
conservation laws for mass, momentum and energy (e.g., Bird e?al. 1960). By
solving the equations derived from these conservation laws, subject to relevant
boundary conditions, detailed information describing the velocity field, the
pressure distributionand temperatures within the geometry can be obtained. This
information may then be used to calculate parameters characteristic to the
processing geometry, e.g., properties relevant to heat transfer and residence
time.
For most fluids assuming incompressibility introduces only minor errors
into the equations. In the following. therefore, we consider single phase
incompressible fluids where the conservation of mass may be stated as

In addition, we take the steady state equations for conservation of linear

momentum. As we consider flows without free surfaces the effect of gravity
may be hidden in an effective pressure (e.g., Bird et al. 1960). The equations
become

where the viscosity function, q(+,l), may depend on the local strain rate and
temperature. The local strain rate is defined by

In particular, for simple shear flows, + equals the shear rate.

 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 289

As described above, the rheological properties of the fluid being processed

enters Eq. (2) through the viscosity function q(y,Z). Here, we use a variant of
the Cross model proposed by Steffe (1992):

The temperature dependency of qo, q- and K are modelled by polynomial

functions. In Table 1 we give the parameters for the fluid considered.

TABLE 1 .
THE TEMPERATURE DEPENDENT VISCOSITY PARAMETERS BASED ON
VISCOMETRIC MEASUREMENTS IN THE TEMPERATURE RANGE
20C TO 1OOC. THE VISCOSITY FUNCTION WAS DETERMINED FOR THE
1.75 W/W% A-CARRAGEENAN SOLUTION IN GLYCEROL

qm(T) (9.8. 103[OC]2.62P~)T-2.62

K(T) (5.92. 102[OC]2~33~-')T-2~33

To analyze nonisothermal flow problems, as heat processing, we need an

equation that determines the local temperature. This equation is derived from the
conservation of energy. Assuming steady state and a negligible contribution from
viscous heating we m a y write the following:
290 A. FRIIS, P. SZABO and T. KARLSON

In the following we consider the parameters p, d, and k as constants (Table 2).

TABLE 2.
THE FIXED PARAMETERS (DENSITY, HEAT CONDUCTIVITY AND HEAT CAPACITY)
ARE TAKEN AS CONSTANTS CORRESPONDING TO THE PROPERTIES OF
GLYCEROL AT 20C

P k G
I 1 . 2 ~ 1 0kg/m3
~ I 0.29 W/(m K) I 2 . 6 2 ~ 1 0J/(kg
~ K) I

The general solution to the Eq. (l), (2) and (5) is for realistic problems
only obtained through a numerical approximation. It is, however, possible to
derive a solution for the isothermal flow in a geometry similar to the CDHE.In
Edelist and Tadmor (1983) a solution was derived for the fully developed flow
of an incompressible fluid through a curved channel. Their solution neglects the
effects from the inlet and outlet regions but retains the boundary conditions of
given throughput and disc rotation. The solution for the tangential velocity
component is given by:

where

The expressions in Eq. (6148) are given in terms of the dimensionless variables
Y = r/R, and 5 = z/R,, R, being the shaft radius. In addition, a number of
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 29 1

nondimensional parameters describe the geometry and the pressure gradient: a=

HIR,,, /3=RJRS, cpn = nr/a and G = -(dp/d19)/2po. Here Rd is the barrel
radius, His the distance between two discs in the chamber and o is the angular
frequency of the disc rotation. The symbols I, and K, and denote modified
Bessel functions of order one. Expressions for the constants of integration may
be found in Edelist and Tadmor (1983) or derived from the boundary conditions:
ue(& 0 = 0 and u&, a) = u,(v,O) =@I, <)=I. It follows from the
+
expressions in (7)and (8) that the total volumetric flow, Q = Qd Qp,may be
computed from:

where Q = Qp is only a function of the tangential pressure gradient if the

rotational frequency o vanishes. Here we note that the expression for Qp differs
slightly from that of Edelist and Tadmor (1983) as we find a factor of 96 instead
of 192. The notation are as above and the symbols I, and KO denote modified
Bessel functions of zeroth order. It appears from the equations that the
nondimensional pressure gradient may be calculated from the expression QdQ,
= Gf(a,8) wherefis a function determined from geometrical quantities alone.

Numerical Solution and Discretisation

The solution of the partial differential Eq. (1). (2) and ( 5 ) was performed
with a three-dimensional finite element technique (FEM) developed by
Henriksen (1991) (see also Henriksen and Hassager 1993). The method is based
on a discretisation into elements with trilinear basis functions for velocity and
temperature whereas the pressure is approximated as an elementwise constant.
Due to symmetry about the middle plane, parallel to the discs, the solution
domain is taken as the upper half of the processing chamber in the CDHE (Fig.
2). As described above the finite element method requires a discretisation of the
solution domain into elements, i.e., construction of a computational mesh. A
series of Newtonian calculations were performed on meshes with different node
292 A. FRIIS. P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

densities and special refinement near flow singularities, e.g., on the boundary
between scraper and barrel. As the mesh was refined we used the value of the
average (bulk)outlet temperature as a convergence criterion. This analysis lead
to a mesh having 22770 nodes and 19404 elements.

FIG. 2. A SKETCH OF THE COMPUTATIONALDOMAIN

The cross sections a, b and c are used for comparison of numerical computations
with the analytical solution for fully developed flow.

Dimensional Analysis and Scaleup Considerations

The single processing chamber version of the CDHE as described in the
Materials and Methods Section is merely suitable for studies of the potential heat
transfer performance and the fluid dynamics of the machine in principle. In
order to perform heating operations relevant in food processing more processing
chambers must be connected in series (Friis and Adler-Nissen 2000). The
prototype CDHE used in the previous studies as well as the present was
constructed as a single processing chamber machine in laboratory scale (LS
CDHE, see Fig. 1). We-up to pilot plant scale and design of a CDHE with
multiple processing chambers (PS CDHE) was based on the observations of
Edelist and Tadmor (1983) and Friis (1994) and verified using models developed
in the present work.
The Ls CDHE and the PS CDHE were both constructed based on the
assumption following the work of Edelist and Tadmor (1983) that the ratios a!
and fl should be kept constant when scaling in order to assure similarity with
respect to the flow conditions. The general understanding is that these to a great
extent depend on a certain relation between flow driven by the pressure gradient
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 293

and the drag from the disc rotation. The design parameters for three different
corotating machines: the corotating chamber (CRC) investigated by Edelist and
Tadmor (1983), the LS CDHE and the PS CDHE are given in Table 3. We
propose, instead of the parameter a, to consider a new dimensionless
geometrical parameter 6 given by

This parameter characterizes a ratio between the f l ~ wdistance and the channel
width. Thus, a priori, the larger value of 6 the better conditions for heat
transfer.

TABLE 3.
DESIGN PARAMETERS FOR COROTATING MACHINES
- - -

Rd A (a single disk) Q D 6

10-J~)

- - -

&rotating chamber 133 266 12 166.7 lG7 0.181 2.00 LG.5

LS CDHE 24.5 54.0 4.75 7.275 421 0.161 1.83 12.1

PS CDHE 65.0 111.5 8.00 25.78 250 0.123 1.72 13.2

- -

Scale-up to pilot plant scale and construction of a heat exchanger suitable

for realistic heat processing operations follows the recommendations of Friis
(1994). The number of consecutive processing chambers needs to be relatively
high in order to obtain a process suitable for high temperature short time
(HTST) processing. The PS CDHE was therefore constructed with 10 processing
294 A. FRIIS, P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

chambers connected in series and the dimensions were increased in order to

process larger quantities of fluids. Due to limitations in available construction
materials the PS CDHE does not fully meet the constraints regarding a and 8.
By virtue R,and Rd were more or less given and the maximum value that could
be obtained for was 1.72. The distance between the discs is a critical
parameter for the heat transfer, as the heat transfer is inversely proportional to
the distance between the discs (Friis and Adler-Nissen 2000). The decision was
therefore to reduce the ratio a by reducing the distance between the discs in
order to achieve a relative improvement of the heat transfer performance for the
PS CDHE. The design parameter expressing this relation is the area-to-volume
ratio (AIV). This ratio is, when neglecting the scraper, identical to 2 / H and
therefore the higher this ratio becomes the better the theoretical heat transfer
capacity. The fact that AIV was reduced by a factor of 1.8 for the PS CDHE
will in theory have a negative influence on the heat transfer performance
compared to the LS CDHE. Although the original design constraints are not
obeyed fully (i.e., a and 8 are not the same for the machines) the three designs
are considered to be comparable.
In addition to the geometrical parameters discussed above two
nondimensional quantities are of great importance in design and scale-up: the
Reynolds number, Re, denotes the ratio between inertia and viscous forces
whereas the Pklet number, PC, describes the relative importance of convective
heat transfer as compared to conductive heat transfer.
Introducing dimensionless variables in the momentum Eq. (2) we may
derive an expression for the Reynolds number: Re=pQ/(&), where Q denotes
the volumetric flow rate, p is the fluid density, p a typical viscosity and L is a
characteristic length. In general, it is observed that laminar flow behavior exists
for ReC2100 in pipe geometries. Above this value the flow is unstable and a
transition to turbulence depends on the smoothness of the geometry.
The Pklet number is derived from the energy Eq. (5): Pk=pQCJ(kL),
where Cpis the heat capacity and k is the heat conductivity. Typically, the Pklet
number is rather large ( P b l ) meaning that the heat transfer is mainly
convective.
In the CDHE there may be more than one relevant definition of the
Reynolds or Pklet number. We could choose the height, H,of the inlet channel
as the characteristic length, L. Then the values of Re and Pk would represent
upper limits when the disks are stationary so that the flow is channel like. If,
however, the disks are rotating other definitions are more useful. Instead of the
average volumetric flow rate, Q, we define a flow rate relative to the moving
disks, Q,el:
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 295

Here w is the angular frequency of the disk rotation. The integration is

performed over the cross section b in Fig. 2 where a characteristic length could
be L = , / w . We may now redefine the Reynolds and Pklet numbers as

and

This way the flow and heat transfer characteristics induced by the pressure
gradient and disk rotation are expressed in two nondimensional numbers. As
appears from Eq. (12) the Eq. (13) and Eq. (14) may predict Re, = Pd, = 0.
This situation occurs if the disk rotation is so fast that Qdr, equals the average
volumetric flow rate, Q.Then, ideally, we have plug flow through the chamber.
We may. therefore, determine the characteristic frequency upwhere the main
flow becomes plug like:

In a corotating processing chamber, therefore, we cannot expect significant

nomechanical mixing until Qdrq> 2Q so that Q,,, > Q.For larger frequencies
(w>wp) Eq. (13) leads to the following expressions describing Re, ( w ) and P6,:
296 A. FRIIS. P. SZABO and T. KARLSON

For the conditions investigated here, we find values of upthat correspond

to rotational speeds between 7 rpm and 12 rpm. These values are much lower
than the rotational speeds applied in practice as discussed below.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Analysis of the Velocity Field

In Edelist and Tadmor (1983) actual velocity components were measured
in a transparent corotating disc chamber similar to that described in Friis and
Adler-Nissen (2000).The measurements, that were obtained in the region half
way between the inlet and the outlet, showed to be in good agreement with the
analytical expression for the velocity predicted by Eq. (6)-(8), Thus it was
concluded that the flow was fully developed in that area.
Here, therefore, we wish to compare the numerical predictions from a
simulation of the flow of a Newtonian fluid, having constant viscosity, with the
analytical solution in order to establish the extent of the area wherein fully
developed flow can be assumed. Also, as the computations were performed
under creeping flow conditions (Re 4 1). the comparison is used to verify the
numerical solution. We consider the velocity field in the cross section b
indicated in Fig. 2. This section is located half way between the inlet and the
outlet. In Fig. 3 we have depicted the dimensionless analytical and numerical
tangential velocity component at several radial positions. We observe in general
that at the shaft, where Y = 1 and Ub = 1. the velocities decrease rapidly near the
symmetry plane ([ = 0). Furthermore, while the liquid layers close to the disc
(5 = 1) move downstream a growing core of liquid flow upstream for increasing
values of v. This backflow seems to reach its maximum at about v = 1.124 and
then slowly decreases as ~ $ 3 ,/3 being the position of the stationary outer barrel.
In the figure we use solid and dashed lines for the analytical velocities, the
dashed lines indicating radial positions beyond the position of maximum
backflow. It appears that the agreement between the analytical and numerical
values is good. However, close to the shaft (v=1.009), the numerical values
deviate somewhat from the analytical solution. This is due to numerical
difficulties in solving the large velocity gradients present here. A similar
comment applies close to the barrel (v= 1.707).
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 291

-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1

Ue

FIG. 3. DIMENSIONLESS ANALYTICAL AND NUMERICAL VELOCITY PROFILES OF

CROSS SECTION b FOR CONSTANT RADIAL VALUES,
Y = r/R,, fl = 1.72, (r = 0.123, G = -690and lQp/Q.,l = 0.91

Another way to illustrate the velocity field in cross section b is to depict

velocities at constant values of [, i.e., in planes parallel to the discs. This we
do in Fig. 4. In the symmetry plane ([=O) we observe a dominance of the
backflow induced by the pressure gradient. This dominance decreases as E
increases and for 20.7 the drag from the discs causes the flow downstream to
dominate.

-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
Ue

FIG. 4. DIMENSIONLESS ANALYTICAL AND NUMERICAL VELOCITY PROFILES OF

CROSS SECTION b FOR CONSTANT RADIAL VALUES OF
lQp/al
[=2R,<IH=2z/H. /3 = 1.72, cy = 0.123, G = -690 and = 0.91
298 A. FRIIS, P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

In the analytical solution for fully developed flow the radial and axial
velocity componentsare identically zero. Analysis of the numerical velocity field
showed that in cross section b the size of the r- and t-velocity components are
within f 1% of the size of the tangential velocity thus supporting the conclusion
of fully developed flow.
We continue the comparison by considering the velocity field in the cross
sections a and c (Fig. 2). These cross sections are located at angles f 102.8' off
cross section b. We find that the numerical value of u, never, except for values
close to zero, deviates more than f101 from the analytical fully developed
velocity. Thus the flow is considered fully developed between a and c.

Heat Trmfer Performance

The heat transfer performance for both the LS and the PS CDHE are
computed from the FEM simulations and experimental data for a system based
on a 1.75 wlw% A-Carrageenan solution in glycerol. The comparison across
scale and various processing conditions is based on the overall heat transfer
coefficient. From experimental data the heat transfer coefficient, U,is calculated
from Eq. (17).

where

and m=pQ. Furthermore, Tdi and Tpi are inlet temperatures of disks and product
whereas Tb and Tp are the corresponding outlet temperatures. Based on the
simulation results another value of the overall heat transfer coefficient is
calculated from Eq.(19), which is a reduced form of Eq. (17) arising from the
assumption that the heating surface can be considered isothermal (with
temperature Tb.
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 299

The conditions compared all refer to a disc temperature of 1OOC. In order

to relate the results obtained at different flow rates in the two heat exchangers
the mean residence time (VlQ) is computed. In the LS CDHE mass flow rates
of 0.24 kg/min and 0.40 kglmin are investigated yielding VlQ values of 8.6 s
and 5.2 s. The FEM simulations are carried out for the lower of the two flow
rates. Concerning the PS CDHE in this study only one condition was chosen
where VlQ is 7.2 s (equivalent to a mass flow rate of 1.73 kglmin). Given the
proximity of the mean residence times for the three conditions investigated it is
assumed that they are comparable. The values obtained for U,and U,are shown
in Fig. 5 .
For the LS CDHE a rather good agreement is found between the
experimental results and the FEM simulations. However, this is not the case for
the PS CDHE where the simulation results show an increase in U,with
increasing disc rotation speed, as seen for the LS CDHE. The experimental
results on the other hand yield a plateau around 600 W/(m2K). The values of U,
and U, are in agreement around 80 to 100 rpm but at 150 rpm a relatively large
decay is observed.

FIG. 5. NUMERICALLY COMPUTED AND EXPERIMENTAL OVERALL HEAT

TRANSFER COEFFICIENTS OF THE LS AND PS CDHE AT VARYING
ROTATIONAL FREQUENCIES
Td = 1OOC: Simulations: - 0 - : mu = 0.24 kghin, -+-: th, = 1.7 kglmin.
Experiments: X: mu = 0.24 kglmin; A: thu = 0.40 kglrnin, 0:&
t = 1.7 kglmin).
300 A. FRIIS. P. SZABO and T. KARLSON

It is seen in Fig. 5 that the overall heat transfer coefficients predicted by the
FEM simulations makes a shift between 25 and 50 rpm. This follows the finding
that the disc rotation frequency as a strict requirement needs to exceed o,,in
order for reverse flow to develop in the processing chamber. In reality o must
be much larger than o,,to allow significant reverse flow to develop. Both the LS
and the PS CDHE are seen to have reached that condition for a rotation speed
between 25 and 50 rpm.
The experimental data for the LS CDHE are obtained from Friis (1994) and
the experimental findings for the PS CDHE are shown in Table 4. It has been
found experimentally that the temperature in the PS CDHE reaches its maximum
level after passing approximately 4 chambers. The values of U,are calculated

TABLE 4.
EXPERIMENTAL DATA FROM MEASUREMENTS ON THE PS CDHE. THE FLOW RATE
WAS 1.7 kg/min

- -

W TpI ATP Tdi ATd

kP4 ("C) ("C) ("C) ("1

-- -- -
80 41 49.0 102 -9 607.2

80 42 49.0 102 -9 651.6

80 44 49.0 105 -9 607.5 622

100 41 50.0 104 -9 577.8

100 43 50.0 105 -9 617.1

100 43 49.0 104 -8 604.7 600

.25.48 43 49.0 105 -9 568.5

125.2 43 48.0 105 -9 524.7

125.2 43 48.0 104 -8 556.8 550

150 42 49.0 105 -9 533.8

150 43 48.0 105 -9 517.5 526

- - -- -
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 30 1

based on the assumption that the outlet temperature is equal to the exit
temperature from the fourth chamber and that the remaining 6 chambers serve
only as a holding section. The values of U, obtained by this procedure are
believed to be of the relevant magnitude for comparison with the simulations.
It must, however, be realized that the values obtained are an underprediction as
the temperature is likely to reach its maximum level at an earlier point than the
exit of the fourth chamber. This is to some extent substantiated by the simulation
results presented in Table 5 . Here it is seen that the temperature increase in
chamber four is relatively small.

TABLE 5.
PREDICTED INLET AND OUTLET TEMPERATURES FOR FOUR HEAT EXCHANGERS
(PS CDHE) COUPLED IN SERIES AND THE REYNOLDS NUMBERS COMPUTED AT
THE INLET AND THE OUTLET
(Td= 98C and o = 8.4s” (80 rpm)).

Heat exchanger Ti (“C) To (“C) Re,

34.0 84.0 1.02 6.26 3.61-22.1

84.0 94.9 6.26 9.28 22.1-32.8

94.9 97.3 9.28 10.1 32.8-35.7

97.3 97.8 10.1 10.3 35.7-36.4

DiSCUSSiOnS

The fully developed flow field in two CDHE designs are at all times
laminar, however, rather chaotic flows are observed in the mixing zones in the
inlet and outlet of a processing chamber. Following Borgbjerg and Kolte (1995)
and Friis and Adler-Nissen (2000) this is believed to be the main reason why the
heat transfer capacity is found superior to that of laminar flow in a straight
channel.
302 A. FFUIS, P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

Simulationsand experimental results show that for most disc rotation speeds
the heat transfer capacity of the PS CDHE is superior to the LS CDHE. This
was not expected based on the dimensional analysis which shows that a reduction
of the AIV ratio should lead to a reduced heat transfer capacity. However, it
should be realized that this is only true when all other dimensions are kept
constant. The proposed ratio 6 is believed to be more relevant for comparison
across scale. The data presented in Table 3 show in fact 6 to be higher for the
PS CDHE compared to LS CDHE. That the magnitude of the AIV ratio does
play a role can be seen from the simulation results, which predict the LS CDHE
to yield outlet temperatures from the first chamber that is 7-27% higher than
what is predicted for the PS CDHE.
The fact that simulation and experimental findings coincide regarding the
LS CDHE but not for PS CDHE is not by any means expected. The simulation
results for the two CDHE designs follow the same trend with the PS CDHE
producing higher overall heat transfer coefficients. The plateau found in repeated
experiments do show slightly better heat transfer capacity in the PS CDHE at
low rotational frequencies. It seems, however, that the experiments are carried
out in a different operation regime compared to that of the LS CDHE.
Several explanations are possible. The fact that the value of 6 for the PS
CDHE is 50% larger than the corresponding value for the LS CDHE might have
shifted the optimal frequency range. This indicates that 6 may be too large in the
PS CDHE. Otherwise the temperature might reach the maximum level already
in the fourth chamber, thus underpredicting the overall heat transfer coefficients.
Another possible explanation could be that free convection effects improve the
heat transfer in the PS CDHE. To examine this we compute the ratio between
the Grashof number (Gr=p2~gL3AT/p2) and the Reynolds number squared
(Gr/ReZ).We find that this ratio is limited by 0.25/Re2and therefore Gr/Re241
for all processing conditions studied. This indicates that free convection can be
eliminated as the course to improved heat transfer. A reason for a failure of the
numerical prediction could be that the flow in the processing chamber is
assumed symmetrical about the mid plane. This assumption could, however, be
violated at sufficiently high throughput rates, i.e., at large Reynolds numbers.
Another more severe assumption in the model of the CDHEs in series is the
application of a mean outlet temperature as the bulk inlet temperature for the
succeeding CDHE. This produces ideal mixing between chambers which is not
found exactly in reality.

CONCLUSIONS

Good agreement is found between the experiments of Edelist and Tadmor

(1983) and simulations concerning the flow patterns. Based on the match of flow
 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 303

profiles in the fully developed flow region it is concluded that the FEM model
describes the flow pattern in the CDHE. Concerning the heat transfer
coefficients for the LS CDHE the FEM simulations is in good agreement with
the experimental findings. However, for the PS CDHE more work is needed in
order to explain the deficiency between the experiments and the FEM simulation
results. At present scale-up is not possible using the FEM model. We do,
however, believe to have identified another dimensionless parameter 6 which
was increased considerably during scale-up even though the two original
parameters (aand P ) were kept almost constant.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The financial support from the Centre for Advanced Food Studies (LMC)
is greatly appreciated. The authors would like to thank Ms.Helle V. Mathiasen
for her assistance with the experiments on the PS CDHE. Also, we would like
to thank Prof. Ole Hassager and Prof. Jens Adler-Nissen for many stimulating
discussions.

NOMENCLATURE

A Surface area of process chamber

CP
Heat capacity
g The gravitational acceleration
G Nondimensional pressure gradient
Gr Grashofs numbers
H The distance between two discs in a chamber
k Thermal conductivity
K Parameter in the Cross viscosity model
L Characteristic length parameter
1 Mass flow rate
P Effective pressure that includes gravitational forces
PC,PC, Ordinary and modified PCclet number
Q Volumetric flow rate
Qd* Qp Volumetric flow rates in analytical solution (drag and pressure driven)
ed, Flow rate for fluid moving along with discs
QM, Flow rate relative to the moving discs
r Radial space coordinate
RdJ, The barrel and shaft radii
Re, Re, Ordinary and modified Reynolds numbers
T TemDerature
 A. FRIIS, P. SZABO and T.KARLSON

Disc temperatures at inlet and outlet

Product temperatures at inlet and outlet
Nondimensional velocity in the &direction
Velocity in analytical solution (drag and pressure driven)
Overall heat transfer coefficients (experimental and predicted from
simulation)
Velocity in the i'th coordinate direction
Fluid velocity vector
Volume of process chamber
Coordinate i-direction (x, y or I)
Axial space coordinate
Ratio between H and R,
Ratio between Rd and R,
-
Equal to 1 aP at temperature T
P aT
Strain rate invariant
Ratio between Rd+R, and H
Nondimensional axial coordinate (z/R,)
Viscosity function
Viscosity parameters in the Cross model
Tangential space coordinate
Characteristic viscosity parameter
Nondimensional radial coordinate (MJ
Modified nondimensional axial coordinate (2zlH)
Fluid density
Equal to 9 d a
The angular frequency of the disc rotation
The angular frequency at which Q,,,vanishes
Modified Bessel functions of order 0 and 1
Bessel functions of order 0 and 1
Differential operator vector (gradient)
Laplace differential operator
Inner (scalar) product operator
Transpose of (..)

REFERENCES

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 MODELING HEAT EFFICIENCY 305

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