Scale-up effects on the drop size distribution of liquid–liquid dispersions in agitated vessels

Abstract

A multifractal formalism describing the fine-scale structure of turbulence, including its intermittency, is applied to express the drop breakage and coalescence frequencies for drops whose diameter falls within the inertial subrange of turbulence. The model predicts the transient drop size distributions of dispersions in stirred tanks and is used to test four methods of scaling-up agitated vessels. Fast and slow coalescing dispersions are considered.