No abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the effect of agitator’s types on the turbulent flows in stirred tanks without and with baffles. The hydrodynamics behavior induced by four different agitator’s types: a Rushton turbine (RT), a circular blade turbine (CBT), a diverging triangular blade turbine (DTBT) and converging triangular blade turbine (CTBT) are numerically predicted by solving the Navier-Stokes equations and RNG κ–ε turbulent model. The simulations are carried out using the Multi Reference Frame (MRF) approach. The numerical results showed good agreement with experiment. We find that the agitator CTBT gives an important profit on the power consumption per report/ratio the others and DTBT give a good reduction of the vortex size of the impeller angles.

Effects of the baffles shape on the fluid velocities, flow patterns and power consumption in vessels agitated by a six blade Rushton turbine are explored in this paper. The curvature of baffles, their length, position and width are the main parameters under investigation. The study is carried out by using the Computational Fluid Dynamics tool, for a range of Reynolds number in the turbulent flow regime from 10 4 to 10 5. The comparison between the straight and curved baffles revealed that the curved shape allows wider well stirred region and more powerful radial jet of fluid than the straight baffle. In addition, the increase in baffle curvature allows a reduction in power consumption. When partial baffles are inserted in the vessel, the lowest value of power number is obtained with baffles located at the upper part of vessel, followed by those located at the center and then at the lower part. Concerning the effect of baffle length, the baffles with partial length which are located at the center position in vessel require the lowest power consumption.

The flow patterns and power consumption of a six-blade Rushton turbine (RT) in a cylindrical vessel are characterized in this paper. We focus on the effects of the shape of the vessel base by studying two cases: a conical and a dished shape. In addition, the effects of the height of the vessel base (h2) are explored and four cases are considered, namely: h2/D = 1/10, 1/6, 1/5 and 1/3 (D: vessel diameter). In the second part of our investigation, a new design of baffles (a triangular-shaped baffle) is suggested and a comparison is made between the performance of the standard and the triangular baffles. The main findings revealed that the conical shape of the vessel base provides a slight enhancement in the axial circulation at almost the same power input for the dished bottomed vessel. For Re < 2 × 104, the power required by both types of baffles is the same; however, above this value of Re, a reduction by about 4% in power consumption is given by the standard baffles. Also, and for all shapes of baffles and vessel bases, a reduction in power consumption may be obtained by increasing the height of the vessel base.

The performance of curved bladed turbines (CBTs) for the agitation of Newtonian fluids in cylindrical tanks is investigated. The efficiency of CBT is compared with that of the standard Rushton turbine. Also, effects of the blade height of the new designed impeller are highlighted. The CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) study is performed to observe the axial, radial and tangential components of velocities, flow patterns and power consumption. The obtained results revealed that the increase of blade curvature reduces the power consumption. Also, a slight decrease of power number is observed in the turbulent flow regime within unbaffled tanks. In a comparison between the cases studied, the best axial circulation of fluid is given by the impeller with flat blades. The increase of the height of curved blades has generated a stronger tangential flow and enhanced the axial movement of fluid particles, but with further penalty in power input.