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Power Requirement when Mixing a Shear-Thickening Fluid with a
Helical Ribbon Impeller Type
By Guillaume Delaplace, Jean-Claude Leuliet, and Gilles Ronse*
The optimal design of close clearance impellers requires the knowledge of the power demand of the mixing equipment. In nonNewtonian mixing, this can be readily obtained using the Metzner and Otto concept [1]. In this work, this concept and the
determination of the Ks value for an atypical helical agitator (PARAVISC system from Ekato firm) have been revised in the case
of shear-thinning fluids and a shear-thickening fluid. For poor shear-thinning fluids, it has been shown that for our mixing system
the Ks value does not vary strongly with the flow behavior index, and may be regarded as a constant for the mixing purpose
design. By contrast, for the shear-thickening fluid, power consumption measurements indicate that the relationship between the
Ks values and the flow behavior index is much more complex due to a partial solidification of the product around the impeller.
1 Introduction
Mixing highly viscous fluids is a common unit operation in
chemical and food industries. To predict the power demand of
a mixing system to achieve such operations, the knowledge of
two parameters usually named Kp and Ks is required.
Kp is the product of the power number Np by the Reynolds
number Re when mixing Newtonian fluids under laminar
regime.
Ks is the constant of proportionality which links the
effective shear rate (defined by the Metzner and Otto concept
[1]) and the rotational speed of the impeller when mixing nonNewtonian fluids under laminar regime.
Numerous experimental and theoretical works have been
carried out to predict the Kp factor only from the knowledge of
geometrical parameters of the mixing system. As a result,
nowadays we can estimate without experimental studies and
with satisfactory accuracy the Kp factor for a wide range of
mixer geometries.
Although the determination of the Ks factor for various
mixing systems using shear-thinning fluids and the Metzner
and Otto concept [1] have been widely covered in the
literature, the prediction of this factor is still critical. Indeed,
even for a given mixing system, lots of disparities exist about
the values of the Ks parameter. For instance, contradictory
results exist concerning the Ks factor dependence on the
rheological properties of the fluid.
To point out the level of existing confusion, one may
mention the experimental works on helical ribbon impellers
using shear-thinning fluids of Hall and Godfrey [2], Nagata et
al. [3], Rieger and Novak [4], Takahashi et al. [5] and Shamlou
and Edwards [6] who concluded that the Ks factor is a pure
geometrical parameter and the works of Yap et al. [7], Brito-de
la Fuente et al. [810], Leuliet et al. [1112], Carreau et al. [13]
[*]
2 Theoretical Aspects
Every mixing system is characterized by a power curve. This
power curve is the plot of the power number Np versus the
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Reynolds number Re and is described by the following
relationship1):
Np f Re
(1)
where
Np P N 3 d 5
and
Re N d2 m
(2)
(3)
1)
330
Figure 1. Picture of the helical impeller used (PARAVISC system, EKATO) and
geometrical parameters of the mixing system.
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(4)
Chem. Eng. Technol. 23 (2000) 4
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The values of the parameters a,b,c and d are given in Tab. 1.
Table 1. Rheological and physical properties of the Newtonian fluids used.
then deduced from flow rate and pressure drop measurements. A sketch of the experimental platform used to make
the in-line rheology is shown in Fig. 2.
For the dilatant fluid, the flow curve could not be described
by a simple power-law model. A local power-law model was
used to fit the flow curve. This method consists in approximating each point of the flow curve by its tangency (Wilson and
Thomas [17]). The final relationship is:
ma kg g ng1
(5)
3 n1
Q
and
32
4n
D3
(7)
w
PD
4L
(8)
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0:29
4 Results
l=d
(9)
Figure 3. Power curve of the mixing system studied with Newtonian fluids.
Solutions A, B, C and D are dilute glucose syrups with different amounts of
water.
332
Figure 4. Evolution of the Ks values with the flow behavior index of shearthinning fluids for the mixing system investigated.
Kp
2
Nr 2 l
d
(10)
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4.3 The Shear-Thickening Fluid
4.3.1 Viscosimeter Measurements
Before analyzing the rheological measurements obtained
for our starch suspension, note that the flow behavior of such
product is very complex and it is very difficult to obtain
meaningful data for this suspension. Indeed, this suspension
keeps a purely viscous behavior while the product has not
been subjected to important shear rate values. If the shear rate
values provided to the fluid are too strong, the product
becomes a time-dependent fluid. To avoid such difficulties,
cares have been taken in order to mix the suspension at low
shear rate values.
Fig. 5 shows the in-line rheology of the product before and
after power measurements.
Figure 8. Evolution of the effective shear rate with the rotational speed of the
impeller obtained when mixing a dilatant fluid with helical impeller (PARAVISC system).
Figure 6. Comparison of rheological data of the starch suspension 50 % (w/w)
obtained with different viscosimeters.
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A linear regression of these data gives
_ e 136 N
The disagreement between this Ks value (Ks = 136) and the
values obtained with shear-thinning fluids (the average value
of Ks is in this case equal to 32.2) is quite obvious and will now
be discussed.
For classical impellers (Ruhston Turbines, propellers),
Calderbank and Moo Young [20] and Metzner et al. [21] have
first obtained significant differences between the Ks factor
obtained with dilatant fluids and pseudoplastic fluids.
In recent studies, Edwards et al. [22], Edwards and Jomha
[23] and Ahmad et al. [24] using anchor and helical ribbon
impellers have also noticed this phenomenon (predicted
power requirements for dilatant fluids, using the effective
shear rate concept and the Ks factor obtained with pseudoplastic fluids, were largely less than the power consumption
experimentally measured).
We think that there is little probability that for dilatant
fluids, for a given impeller rotational speed, the representative
shear rate in the vessel will be 4 or 5 times higher than for
shear-thinning fluids if there is no important change of the
profile shear rate in the vessel. We are convinced that the
physical meaning of such an increase of the average shear rate
is due to geometrical modification of the mixing system caused
by shear-thickening effects of the suspension.
As it was already suggested by previously mentioned
authors, we proposed the following mechanism to explain
the observed phenomenon: for a given impeller rotational
speed, in the vicinity of the impeller, the suspension is
subjected to a very high shear rate. As underlined by Edwards
et al. [22], dilatancy is clearly favored by high shear rate values.
As a consequence, the rheological behavior of the suspension
in the neighborhood of the impeller becomes close to a solid
one and there is a formation of a solid layer close to the wall of
the impeller. This means that the impeller diameter and so the
clearance wall of the mixing system are widely altered when
the product is agitated.
These assumptions are in agreement with the experimental
works of Forresti and Liu [25] who noted a surprising increase
of power requirement when mixing under laminar regime
dilatant fluids in a baffled and nonbaffled vessel. Indeed, this
mechanism of partial solidification around the impeller for
dilatant substances means that the region where most shearing
occurs is shifted away from the impeller and towards the vessel
walls. If we admit that the total energy dissipation (power
consumption) is only due to the shearing of the fluid in the gap.
This effect explains why baffles increase the power consumption in the agitation of dilatant fluids.
To modelize the mechanism of this partial solidification at
the impeller wall, we have suggested that for each impeller
rotational speed, the impeller keeps the same shape (pitch,
width and height of helical ribbon) and only the diameter da of
334
da
2 C
k Kp Ksn1 N n
(11)
Ks
Kp
2
Nr 2 l
(12)
da da
0:29
Kp 66 Nr0:84 1 2 t da 1
l=da
(13)
n f1 _ eq
(14)
k f2 _ eq
(15)
_ e Ks N
(16)
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Figure 10. Evolution of the Ks factor with the flow behavior index for the
PARAVISC mixing system. For dilatant fluid, each symbol refers to a different
fictitious impeller diameter and as a result to different mixing systems.
Kp
[]
Ks
[]
k
_
k
[Pa sn]
[Pa sn]
l
l
n
_
n
[m]
[m]
[]
[]
N
Np
Nr
P
[rev/s]
[]
[]
[W]
Re
Rea
[]
[]
s
t
w
L
[m]
[m]
[m]
[m]
Greek symbols
5 Conclusions
This present work has pointed out the fact that we can
obtain, for a high concentrate suspension, similar flow curves
with both classical viscosimeters (controlled shear rate and
shear stress rotational viscosimeters) and in-line rheology.
This experimental evidence is very interesting for industrial
suspensions applications.
Finally, we have pointed out that a shear-thickening fluid
widely alters the geometrical shape of the mixing system, due
to partial mechanism of solidification of the fluid around the
impeller. This purely geometrical modification of the mixing
system enhances drastic changes of the performance of the
mixer and highlights the limitations of the Metzner and Otto
concept to predict power consumption when dilatancy
phenomena occur.
Received: November 27, 1998 [CET 1063]
[]
[N m]
[m]
[m]
HL
[m]
[s1]
a
[Pa s]
[Pa s]
e
[Pa s]
_
[Kg/m3]
[Pa]
[s-1]
[C]
Subscript
w
at wall
References
Symbols used
c
C
d
da
_ e
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