Abstract

An agitated two-phase flow and the mixing progress in an oil-water stirred tank are studied numerically using FLUENT software. The stirred cylindrical tank is equipped with an axial-type turbine and a radial-type impeller. The full Eulerian multiphase approach coupled with the standard turbulence model is performed to deal with two-phase flow with a higher volume fraction of the second (dispersed) phase. The computation is completed by using unstructured meshes in a multiple reference frame (MRF). For the initial condition of the simulation, oil is set on the top part of the tank with 30% of the total fluid volume. The simulation is conducted to get distributions of two-phase flow speed, pressure and volume fraction and to successfully illustrate how the mixing of two-phase components progresses in the stirred tank. The computational results obtained in this study would be useful for explaining the two-phase flow patterns on the mixing process and extending the applications of multiphase stirred reactors.

Recommended Citation

Huang, Si; Mohamad, Abdulmajeed; and Nandakumar, K. (2008) "Numerical Analysis of a Two-Phase Flow and Mixing Process in a Stirred Tank," International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering: Vol. 6: A38.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/ijcre/vol6/A38