An experimental and computational study of the vortex shape in a partially baffled agitated vessel

Computational Fluid Dynamics Study of a Pharmaceutical Full-Scale Hydrogenation Reactor

The pharmaceutical industry has been quite successful in developing new hydrogenation processes, and the chemistry of hydrogenation is currently well understood. However, it is a complex process to scale and optimize due to its high exothermicity, use of expensive catalysts and solvents, and its mass transfer requirements. Therefore, the aim of this work is to develop a CFD model to be able to describe the mass transfer, hydrodynamics, and mixing with respect to changes in rotational speed for a full-scale pharmaceutical hydrogenation reactor. In the first stage, a simple CFD model is used to predict the development of the surface vortex, and it is validated against literature data. In the second stage, the CFD model is tested on a full-scale configuration equipped with a Rushton turbine and a bottom kicker to study the formation of the surface vortex. Simulation results show the ability to predict the development of the surface vortex. These results are used to estimate the liquid height and mixing time as a function of several rotational speeds, allowing us to propose novel process correlations for this particular configuration. Although modelling the complete hydrogenation process would be challenging, this work is seen as a first step towards developing models that demonstrate the use of CFD at such large reactor scales.

Study on critical speed of vortex rupture and gas-liquid two-phase flow in rotating soybean milk machine

The gas-liquid two-phase flow field inside a soybean milk machine is simulated with the Navier–Stokes equations, Renormalization group (RNG) k-ɛ turbulence model and the particle two-phase flow model. The critical speed of vortex breakdown in the container and the influence of the characteristics of the two-phase flow on the soybean crushing effect at different speeds are investigated. The results show that there is a critical value of rotating speed of 1500 rpm for the vortex breakdown in the studied machine. At this rotational speed, the turbulent eddy dissipation (TED) reaches the maximum, and the position where the vortex first rupture is near the central axis and with a distance of 0.01 m from the central axis. It is also found that with the increase of rotating speed, the pressure difference around the blade varies significantly. The research in this study has important implication for the design of the soybean milk machine.

A General Review of the Current Development of Mechanically Agitated Vessels

The mixing process in a mechanically agitated vessel is a widespread phenomenon which plays an important role among industrial processes. In that process, one of the crucial parameters, the mixing efficiency, depends on a large number of geometrical factors, as well as process parameters and complex interactions between the phases which are still not well understood. In the last decade, large progress has been made in optimisation, construction and numerical and experimental analysis of mechanically agitated vessels. In this review, the current state in this field has been presented. It shows that advanced computational fluid dynamic techniques for multiphase flow analysis with reactions and modern experimental techniques can be used with success to analyse in detail mixing features in liquid-liquid, gas-liquid, solid-liquid and in more than two-phase flows. The objective is to show the most important research recently carried out.