Quantitative Mixing Analysis of Laminar Flow in Circle Grid Perforated Plate with 50% Porosity Static Mixer

Abstract

The applications of the static mixers are widely applied in many industries to obtain the desired type of mixing. In this context, to perform the mixing process should have two different fluids that also have different properties which will combines it in a single equipment to make an another fluid. The main objective of this research study is to propose a new approach of fractal concept (circle grid perforated plate) for internal rapid mixing by determining the coefficient of variation (COV). This study was implemented by fully numerical simulations. The simulations of mixing fluid were carried out with the help of commercial computational fluid dynamic (CFD) package ANSYS CFX 14.0 software. The simulation was done primarily in cylindrical pipe with insertions of circle grid perforated plate with porosity of 50%. Three levels of laminar flow have been chosen to result in Reynolds numbers (Re) equal to 100, 200 and 400. The effectiveness of circle grid perforated plate static mixer has been evaluated by comparing the homogeneity level of mixing fluids to the Kenics static mixer that readily available in industries applications. Based on the research findings, the COV value for circle grid perforated plate with 50% porosity at Re 100 was 0.0744 which is out of the range while Reynolds number at 200 and 400 were 0.0483 and 0.0247 respectively which are in the range in term of reasonable target of mixing homogeneity. The values of COV between 0.01 and 0.05 are the reasonable target for many applications. In term of manufacturing cost and energy loss due to static mixer, definitely this new approach of 50% porosity circle grid perforated plate is better design compared to the Kenics static mixer because of lower number of inserts and simpler design of static mixer to produce.