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Design Analysis and Scale Up of Mixing PDF
Design Analysis and Scale Up of Mixing PDF
Design Analysis and Scale Up of Mixing PDF
Abstract:
Mixing plays an important role in the manufacture of food, pharmaceutical, health care
and chemical products. Inadequate understanding of mixing can result in unsatisfactory
product quality, increased cost of production and loss of revenue.
The use of analysis tools of varying rigor to solve mixing problems is described. This
solution strategy can be applied to solve mixing problems related to the design of
processes, scale-up and scale-down of equipment.
Introduction:
Mixing processes are complex, multi-faceted in nature and require an understanding of
the fluid flow behvior along with an understanding of the mechanical and power
requirement aspects of the equipment. Mixing operations may involve single-phase
liquid mixing, liquid-liquid mixing, solid-liquid mixing, gas-liquid mixing, solid-solid
mixing and in some cases three-phase mixing involving solid, liquid and gas.
The primary function of a mixing vessel is to provide adequate stirring and mixing of the
fluid. The mixing characteristics influence the product quality and efficiency of the
process to a great degree. Stirred vessels come in various shapes and sizes. The main
vessel is cylindrical in shape and the vessel bottom is very often contoured. Baffles are
included in the vessel to break the vortex and prevent solid body rotation of the fluid.
Draft tubes are included to direct suction and discharge streams. Dip-tubes are employed
to inject fluids at specific locations. An important component of a stirred tank is the
impeller. The rotating impeller imparts motion and shear to the fluid thus inducing
mixing. The type of impeller employed depends on the nature of the task. Very often the
same stirred vessel is required to perform various duties. It is important to ensure
efficient and optimum operation of the stirred vessel for a given duty. There is also a
need to create process conditions that are optimum at the lab-scale, pilot-scale and
production-scale so that productivity is maximized.
There is little or no instrumentation on mixing equipment. Failure to mix is assessed by
product quality. To compensate for poor mixing, very often the mixing equipment is
1
over designed. This can be counter-productive; for example, excessive mixing can
damage biological material and lead to high capital and operating costs.
The mixing requirements depend on the process. For example, the requirements for
liquid-liquid mixing are very different from those of liquid-solid mixing or liquid-gas
mixing. Scale-up or scale-down of mixing processes is not easy. Scale-up of lab
processes to pilot and production scale is difficult. Scale-up problems are made worse by
trying to use existing pilot and production mixers for new processes. Very often, scale-up
or scale-down is carried out using trial and error methods based on prior experience and
equipment vendor suggestions. Time and effort spent on process scale-up/scale-down
can be significant. Predictive tools to analyze existing equipment and techniques to scale
a process from lab to pilot and ultimately to production are required.
The following sections describe analysis methods to design and analyze mixing
equipment and to address mixing problems, including scale-up/scale-down.
This
strategy can be used for successful transition of new lab processes into production and to
affect lab development work to ensure that the processes under development are
amenable to scale-up.
applied to rapidly assess the impact of mixing vessel configuration, fluid properties and
process parameters on mixing performance. Key mixing performance parameters are
readily available in Visimix for design evaluation decisions. In the current study, Vismix
is applied to solve a number of mixing problems.
Tier-three methods involve detailed measurements and predictions. Experimental
measurements and analytical methods based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
are classified as tier-three methods. CFD methods are based on the solution of NavierStokes equations to predict stirred vessel behavior. These methods are useful in
evaluating detailed flow patterns in complex geometries and in situations where tier-two
methods are not applicable. CFD methods are based on the solution of conservation
equations of mass, momentum and energy at thousands of locations within the flow
domain. A CFD solution provides full-field data; flow variables at each and every
location in the domain are available; a graphical representation of the flow can be
created.
1.6
1.4
Power (W)
1.2
Visimix predictions
Tier-2
analys
CFD predictions
0.8
Tier-3
analys
Experimental
measurements
0.6
Experimental
0.4
0.2
0
0
100
200
300
400
500
Impeller rpm
0.14
0.12
0.1
Visimix predictions
0.08
Experimental measurements
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0
200
400
600
Impeller rpm
Stirred Vessel Configuration Selection: In this study, general guidelines based on tierone methods are initially applied to obtain overall scale of a mixing vessel. The mixing
characteristics for various impeller types are evaluated based on tier-two methods using
Visimix. Table-I depicts performance of stirred vessel for a pitched-blade, Rushtonturbine and A310 impellers. The tank and baffle dimensions, impeller sizes and
placement locations are the same for all impeller types. The mixing performance
information summarized in Table-I is used to select an appropriate vessel configuration.
Mixing parameter
Mixing power (W)
Average tangential
velocity (m/s)
Circulation flow rate
(m3/s)
Average circulation
velocity (m/s)
Mean period of
circulation (s)
Vortex depth (m)
Mixing time (s)
Pitched-blade
Impeller (45o)
145
.293
Rushton-turbine
Impeller
65.3
.219
A310 Impeller
99.0
.257
.053
.047
.045
.41
.433
.349
1.96
2.24
2.3
.0298
52.2
.0198
53.9
.025
61.5
Fill Level Optimization: The fill level in an unbaffled vessel is optimized by estimating
the free surface vortex draw down in the vessel. Over-filling the mixing vessel results in
increased power consumption and increased mixing time. Under-filling can result in
free-surface vortex interaction with the impeller. This can cause foaming and product
damage. The interaction of the vortex with the impeller can also lead to vibration of the
impeller shaft resulting in mechanical failure of the equipment.
In this study, Visimix is applied to compute vortex draw-down depth for various
operating rpms. This is then used to estimate the optimum fill level of the mixing vessel.
The variation of vortex depth with rpm is depicted in Figure 4.
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
100
200
300
400
Rpm
Scale-down Study: Most processes work well at the lab scale. It is relatively easy to
achieve complete mixing at the lab scale. However, the same process may not work well
at the pilot scale or production scale. Mixing equipment and type differ at each scale.
This disparity in equipment size and type introduce problems in transferring a process
from one scale to another. Scale-down of a process is carried out so that process
conditions at the production scale or pilot scale can be mimicked at the lab scale. The
duplication of a process at lab scale makes it easier to troubleshoot the process. This also
facilitates best practices at the lab scale so that process conditions at the production scale
are well understood and the process under development is amenable to scale-up.
Dissipation (w/kg)
In this study, a production scale process is scaled down to the lab scale so that best
mixing practices at the lab scale can be established. As a first step, key mixing
parameters are identified. Tier-two methods using Visimix are applied to evaluate the
performance of existing equipment. The analysis indicates a disparity in mixing
performance as depicted in Figure 5a.
Various lab scale process conditions and
equipment configurations are examined using Visimix such that the performance at the
two scales match as depicted in Figure 5b. This study resulted in best practices at the lab
scale so that the process at the production scale is well understood. The same techniques
can also be applied to scale up a process.
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Full-scale
Lab-scale (mag)
Lab-scale(blade)
Pilot-scale
100
200
300
400
500
rpm
Dissipation (w/kg)
Full-scale
Lab-scale (mag)
Rev1
Lab-scale(mag)Rev2
Lab-scale(mag)
Rev3
0
200
400
600
rpm
300
250
A310 (d/T=0.3)
200
A310(d/T=0.4)
150
Existing impeller
100
Lab-scale
50
0
0
200
400
600
Impeller (rpm)
Impeller Placement in Vessel: Tier-two methods can be applied to predict overall mixing
behavior such as, the impact of number of impellers on mixing behavior. However, these
methods do not provide detailed information pertaining to impeller-impeller interaction
and its impact on flow behavior in the vessel. These issues are addressed using Tier-three
methods. In the present study, tier-three simulation methods are applied to examine the
impact of impeller placement on flow behavior and hence mixing characteristics.
The flow field in the vessel is simulated using CFD techniques. The mixing vessel
configuration uses two Rushton-turbine impellers. These impellers are designed to pump
radially outward. Figure 7a depicts the flow field (velocity vectors) if the impellers are
spaced further apart. The lower impeller pumps downward and the flow field is not
optimum. Figure 7b depicts the flow field when the impellers are spaced too close to
each other. In this case, the impellers pump towards each other. The flow field when
the impellers are placed at an optimum spacing is depicted in Figure 7c; under these
conditions both impellers pump radially outward.
Downward pumping of
impeller
Figure 7a: Velocity field when impellers are placed further apart.
Figure 7b: Velocity field when impellers are placed too close to each other.
Conclusions:
A multi-tiered approach can be successfully applied for design, analysis and scale-up of
mixing processes. This solution strategy provides the flexibility of adopting the most
appropriate tool based on requirements. Sizing calculations for a new design can be
carried-out using tier-one analysis. Important mixing parameters are estimated using tiertwo analysis. A number of concepts can be rapidly examined using tier-two methods.
These methods can be applied to solve a number of mixing problems. Detailed
information not readily available can be obtained using tier-three methods. These
methods vary in rigor and provide information at various scales. This information can be
assimilated for selected processes to generate specific guidelines for design, scale-up and
trouble shooting of stirred vessels.
References:
1) Perry, R.H., Green, D., Chemical engineers handbook, 1984.
2) Harnby, N., Edwards, M.F., Nienow, A.W., Mixing in the process industries,
Butterworth Heinemann, 1992.
3) Tatterson, G.B., Fluid mixing and gas dispersion in agitated tanks, Mc Graw-Hill
Inc., 1991.
4) Tatterson, G.B., Scaleup and design of industrial mixing processes, Mc Graw-Hill
Inc., 1994.
5) Visimix 2000 Turbulent. , User guide, 2002.
6) FLUENT, User guide, 2002.