Experimental and Numerical Study on Flow Resistance and Bubble Transport in a Helical Static Mixer

Fangyang Yuan, Zhengwei Cui and Jianzhong Lin
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Fangyang Yuan: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Zhengwei Cui: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Jianzhong Lin: School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-20

Abstract: Flow resistance and bubble transport in a helical static mixer were studied experimentally and numerically. The inline mixer increases the volume fraction of gas in liquids by breaking bubbles into smaller sizes with a micrometer size in the flow experiments. The gas–liquid flow was simulated by a combination of computational fluid dynamics and Taylor expansion methods of moments. The friction factor of the helical static mixer is much smaller than that of the Kenics static mixers. The pressure drop increases with the Reynolds number, and the increment is larger when the Reynolds number is higher. The equidistant pressure drop increases with the argument of Reynolds number, and increases when the pitch decreases from upstream to downstream. The energy expenditure increases significantly when the variable-pitch coefficient is too small. The bubble geometric mean diameter decreases and the geometric standard deviation increases when the gas–liquid fluid flows through the mixer. The variable pitch structure enhances the bubble breakup effectively. The change of the bubble size decreases with the argument of the Reynolds number. The effect of the mixer has a limitation on breaking the bubbles.

Keywords: helical static mixer; pressure drop; bubble size distribution; breakup; method of moments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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