Numerical Study of Viscous Fluid Flows in a Kenics Static Mixer

Abstract

<jats:p>Since many years static mixers find usage in chemical, food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry. One of the most commonly used is the Kenics type static mixer. In a framework of the current work the CFD simulation for Kenics static mixer were performed. In food or cosmetic industry one must deal very often with non-Newtonian fluids. Therefore this work concerns the numerical study of non-Newtonian fluid flux in a kenics km static mixer with laminar flow using the Navier-Stocks equation governing the phenomenon and the pressure loss equation. This simulation was made using the computational fluid dynamic software (CFX 12.0). In this paper we studied the influence of the Reynolds number, the viscosity of the fluid, aspect ratio and the number of helical elements fixed on the pressure drop. It was found that the CFD results of pressure drop for non-Newtonian power law was similar to literature data (the correlation of C.D.GRACE 1971 and the numerical simulation of E.SAATDJIAN 2012).</jats:p>

Mixing Efficiency and Residence Time Distributions of a Side-Injection Tubular Reactor Equipped with Static Mixers

“…Moreover SMXs have been demonstrated to be more efficient in mixing than other elements. 17,18 The study of the properties influencing mixing inside SMs has already been examined, for example to observe the influence of viscosity inside Kenics static mixers, 19 the dependency on the Reynolds number in the laminar regime, 20 and the effect of mixing streams with different viscosities. 21 Nevertheless, to the authors knowledge, no comprehensive study is available on the mixing efficiency of the Sulzer SMX as well as the residence time distributions (RTD) attained in tubular reactors with side injections equipped with this type of SM.…”