Abstract:
The study of flow pattern in a mixing tank and Power Number (Np) which is an important parameter for scale-up can be achieved by applying computational fluid dynamics technique. In this study, SST k-omega was used as a turbulent model. A sliding mesh technique was used as an impeller approach for simulating flow which was generated by the rotation of the impeller. The Np in laminar flow regime inversely varied with Reynolds Number (Re), which Np equal to KL/Re. However, in the turbulent flow regime, the Np is constant which Np equal to KT. This work was divided into two parts. Part 1 is a validation of velocity in axial, radial and tangential which generated by Rushton turbine then compared to experimental data from the literature. The Np of standard mixing tank equipped with Rushton Turbine, 45° pitched blade turbine and retreat curve impeller were also validated with literature results. The Np in laminar and turbulent flow regime compare to experimental data from literature less than 10%. The computational results also reported the characteristic flow of the selected impeller. Part 2 is Np calculation for non-standard mixing tank equipped two types of the impeller. The first one is the impeller system including three impellers which are 45° Pitched blade disk Turbine at top and middle of the tank also retreat curve impeller at the bottom tank. The computational results of KL and KT were 251 and 7.21, respectively. The flow pattern shown the axial flow generated from the flow enhancement by the three impellers. The second is the fermenter which is the mixing tank equipped dual Rushton turbine and internal oxygen and pH detector probe. The computational results of KL and KT were 192 and 10.52, respectively. The Np in the turbulent flow regime is twice as much comparing with using only a single Rushton turbine. This was due to the adjustment of the impeller spacing and the impeller clearance which caused the parallel flow. The parallel flow pattern showed that the dual impeller worked parallelly. Reducing impeller clearance from based case cause diverging flow and the Np was 8.61 and increasing impeller clearance cause merging which yields the lowest Np and equal to 7.88. However, the value of Np did not affect the distribution of the velocity in the mixing tank. The diverging flow showed the best velocity distribution compared to the others by considering the graph between velocity and liquid volume fraction.