Blending in a spherical tank

Abstract

Performance of agitator, jet and pneumatic blending was evaluated on a spherical vessel. Spherical vessels can be found throughout the process industry, most commonly as storage tanks. However, there is a lack of fundamental data about mixing in this geometry. Acid-base indicator experiments were used to explore the blending process provided by various agitators, jet nozzle positions, and a pneumatic system. The performance of the various methods was assessed based on their energy consumption and blending time. Generally, the best performance was achieved with systems, which did not induce dominant tangential flow. From the tested methods, jet blending had the lowest energy consumption, while radial pumping agitators were the swiftest.