Aquacultural Engineering 31 (2004) 117–121

Design of high efficiency surface aerators

Part 3. Dimensional analysis of rotor performance
Beatriz Cancino∗
Department of Food Engineering, Universidad Católica de Valparaı́so, Waddington 716, Valparaı́so, Chile

Received 1 April 2003; accepted 14 March 2004

Abstract

This paper is the third and final part of this work. The first two parts studied the mass transfer
equations for oxygen in water and presented equations to design propeller of the surface aerator based
on its similitude to an axial flow pump. Additionally, the results of aeration test with 23 different rotor
setups were presented, in which the highest SAE = 1.805 kg O2 /kWh, was for the rotor designed
with the axial flow pump criteria. The aim of this part is to describe the aerator’s behavior as a
general equation, using dimensional analysis. These equations are defined in terms of geometric
characteristics and aeration efficiency (oxygen transfer rate/input power). It can be concluded that
the aeration efficiency improves with the Froude number, but is inversely related to the speed and
diameter of the propeller.
© 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Surface aerator design; Surface aerator efficiency

1. Introduction

This work, which finalizes with this third article, consists in the study of the centrifugal
surface aerators used in aquaculture to increase the amount of oxygen in the water. In the
first part of this work, the focus were the equations that describe the transfer of oxygen
to the water and the equations used for the design of the aerator blades. In the second
part, 23 different rotor configurations were tested in order to determine their mass transfer
coefficient and the AE. The rotor configuration consists in the most important parameters
of the aerator: the type of propeller, the immersion percentage and the inlet and exit angles
of the blades. In addition, it was shown in that article that the use of design criteria for the

∗ Tel.: +56-32-274225; fax: +56-32-274226.

E-mail address: beatriz.cancino@ucv.cl (B. Cancino).

0144-8609/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aquaeng.2004.03.004
118 B. Cancino / Aquacultural Engineering 31 (2004) 117–121

rotor based on the similitude to an axial flow pump is adequate, giving the greatest value of
SAE = 1.805 kg O2 /kWh.
Nevertheless, the mathematical analysis requires equations that depend on some im-
portant parameters that describe the phenomena. That is, several independent variables
are related through some equation to the dependant variable of interest. These equations
are the ones that are explored in this third article using dimensional analysis. Using di-
mensional analysis, the equations needed to scale the results can be found. In the case of
aeration, the objective is to identify the variables that influence the design and group them
in non-dimensional numbers. In this manner, for example, when varying the diameter of the
blade the dimensional equation can be manipulated so that it is possible to obtain the value
of AE without having to repeat the experiment. Therefore, with this model it is possible
to study the variables which most influence the efficiency of the aerator and the manner in
which they do.
Zlokarnik (1991) showed different applications of dimensional analysis to resolve chem-
ical engineering problems, particularly in aeration. He developed tools for the dimensional
analysis of pressure aeration systems—using diffusers—and surface aeration systems. Oth-
ers authors, Ahmad and Boyd (1988) and Kolega et al. (2004) have shown the design of a
paddle wheel surface aerator, but only the latter used dimensional analysis for the correlation
of the main parameters of the design.

2. Dimensional analysis

Analysis of the surface aerator’s mass transfer from the air to the water was based on
theory of dimensional analysis (Zlokarnik, 1991).
The relevant parameters for a surface aerator are

AE Aeration efficiency at 10 ◦ C (kg O2 /kWh)

Dr Rotor diameter (m)
ρ Water density (kg/m3 )
µ Water viscosity (kg/(m s))
N Revolutions per time unit of the motor
β1 1/Inlet angle of paddle (rad−1 )
β2 1/Outlet angle of paddle (rad−1 )
hprof Immersion depth (m)
g Gravity (m/s2 )
Q Water flow splashed by the Aerator (m3 /s)
P Aerator power (W)
For the dimensional analyses it is necessary to build the main matrix with the relevant
parameters.
ρ Dr N AE−1 P × Q−1 µ g hprof
M 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
L −3 1 0 2 −1 −1 1 1
T 0 0 −1 −2 −2 −1 −2 0
 B. Cancino / Aquacultural Engineering 31 (2004) 117–121 119

Angles β1 and β2 are not put into the matrix because they are dimensional parameters
per se (Zlokarnik, 1991). Making row operations
ρ Dr N AE−1 P × Q−1 µ g hprof
M 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
L −3 1 0 2 2 2 1 1
T 0 0 −1 2 2 1 2 0

After row operation to the matrix, the following dimensionless numbers are obtained:
π1 = P(QρDr2 N 2 )−1 π2 = Q(Dr3 N)−1
π3 = µ(ρDr2 N)−1 = Re−1 π4 = g(Dr N 2 )−1 = Fr−1

π5 = β2−1 π6 = hprof Dr−1

π7 = β1−1 π8 = (AEDr2 × N 2 )−1

Re, Reynolds number; Fr, Froude number.
The resulting equation is
π8 = f1 (π1 , π3 , π4 , π5 , π6 , π7 ) (1)
replacing and rearranging
AE = c2 (QP−1 ρ)f (Dr N)j (Re)m (Fr)p (β2 )s (Dr h−1 u
prof ) (β1 )
w
(2)
making Eq. (2) linear

ln(AE) = ln(c2 ) + f ln(ρQP−1 ) + j ln(Dr N) + m ln(Re) + p ln(Fr) + s ln(β2 )

+u ln(Dr hprof ) + w ln(β1 ) (3)
In order to determine the values of the exponents of the proposed equation, the multiple
linear regression method was used (Cancino, 2001; Zlokarnik, 1991). In this equation, the
aeration efficiency is defined explicitly in function of the Q/P ratio.
Using the results shown in part 2 of this work, it was possible to calculate the coefficients
of Eq. (3). The Reynold number was between 210,000 and 760,000, which is a completely
turbulent flow. The Froude number was between 4.1 and 13.1.
Eq. (3) generalizes the relationship between AE and the Q/P ratio, but the coefficients
are distributed into two groups. Flat rotors go in first group whereas Kinetic, Conrad and
German rotors go together in the second group. The separation of rotors into two groups
was made because in the second group the inlet and the outlet angles are different, while
in the first group the angles are the same. The statistical analysis method (multiple linear
regression) was used with the lineal equation for each group.
For the Flat rotors: ln(c2 ) = 0, f = −0.0461, j = −2.3945, m = 0.003778, p = 1.3696,
s = −0.598, u = 0.039, w = 0.
For Kinetic, Conrad and German rotors the coefficients are: ln(c2 ) = 0, f = −0.02678,
j = −5.7148, m = −0.3388, p = 4.8695, s = −0.3676, u = −0.1256, w = 0.25.
120 B. Cancino / Aquacultural Engineering 31 (2004) 117–121

Table 1
Values of statistical parameters of the multivariable regression for correlation in Eq. (2)
Statistical Flat rotors Kinetic, Conrad and German rotors

F 6.8436 1.3465
F␣ (k,n − (k + 1)) F0.01 (6.8) = 7.19 F0.05 (7.2) = 236.8
Standard estimated error 0.1538 0.2205
D (Durbin–Watson) 2.587 1.851
Result Not significant Not significant

The multiple correlation coefficient for the Flat rotors was r = 0.915. This indicates that
83.7% of the total variation of the variable’s value can be represented by a linear equation.
For the second group, the result of the multiple correlation coefficient was r = 0.91, which
means that a linear equation accounts for 82.5% of the variable’s value.
Table 1 shows the statistical parameters for these groups of equations. The null hypothesis
for Eq. (3) with the first group (Flat rotors) is rejected with a significance level of 0.01,
and the value of the calculated Durbin–Watson statistic (D in Table 1), does not give any
information about the possible correlation of the variables.

3. Discussion

Comparing the calculated and experimental values of the aeration efficiency for the Flat,
Kinetic, Conrad and German rotors, a correlation can be found between the calculated
values and the experimental ones. This correlation quantifies how representative Eq. (2)

Fig. 1. Relation between the experimental values and the calculated values of aeration efficiency (AE) for the Flat
group and the German, Conrad and Kinetic propeller group, according to Eq. (3).
 B. Cancino / Aquacultural Engineering 31 (2004) 117–121 121

can be when using the coefficients of each group. Fig. 1 shows this analysis. A straight
line with slope 1.0 would be present in the case of an ideal representation. Looking at
Fig. 1, we can see that the regression coefficient for the line that represents the behavior of
Kinetic, Conrad and German rotors is far from the ideal value of 1.0. This means that the
coefficients of Eq. (2) represent 56.5% of the propellers’ experimental values. For the flat
propellers however, the equation resembles the actual behavior more closely, since 80.3%
of the experimental values are represented by Eq. (2).
The difference between the exactness and the how well data is represented by an equation
that contains logarithms and another equation that contains exponential terms is due to the
influence of the exponents, for both the group of propellers with flat blades or for the Conrad,
German and Kinetic propeller group. For a linear equation, the method used to determine
the constant coefficients causes a certain amount of error. This percentage can grow when
the equation is presented with exponential terms. Therefore, the correlation coefficient will
vary between the linear and exponential representations of the same equation.
The Dr /h ratio (which corresponds to a dimensionless number obtained from the method
carried out) for the in the full sized commercial aerator that uses the German 2 propeller
is 1.3 and the immersion percentage is 333%. A Dr /h value greater than 1 means that the
propeller has a diameter greater than the vertical distance at which it is submerged. As the
propeller goes deeper into the water the power consumption increases. The smallest value
of Dr /h studied was 1.6. The reason for not studying smaller values than this was the limit
given by the nominal power of the motor, 100 W.

4. Conclusions

According to the dimensional analysis, experimental tests with models and the equations
that describe the aeration phenomenon, it can be concluded that the efficiency improves
with the Froude number, but is inversely related to speed and diameter of the propeller. The
other factors depend on whether a flat propeller or another design is used.

References

Ahmad, T., Boyd, C.E., 1988. Design and performance of paddle wheel aerators. Aquacult. Eng. 7, 39–62.
Cancino, B., 2001. Doctoral Thesis, Optimización y estudio de un aerador superficial para pozas de cultivo de peces
con suministro de energı́a por paneles fotovoltaicos. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Marı́a, Valparaiso,
Chile.
Kolega, J.J., Gordon, N., Quintin, G., 2004. Analyses for oxygen transfer coefficients. In: Rotor Aeration Systems.
pp. 63–75.
Zlokarnik, M., 1991. Dimensional Analysis and Scale-up in Chemical Engineering. Springer Verlag, Berlin.