Numerical simulation of granular mixing in static mixers with different geometries

Abstract

A static mixer is a fidelity engineered device for the continuous mixing of fluid/solid materials. To meet the requirements for mixing purpose, a proper design of the static mixer is important. In this study, we proposed various designs of static mixer based on the blade geometry. Six blade patterns including four twisted blades, four elliptical blades and other four combined geometries of two twisted blades and two elliptical blades are chosen to investigate its mixing performance. Mathematical model of the two-phase flow with fluid/solid interaction in the static mixer is presented. Numerical solution of the flow patterns of particulate solids, and the velocity and the pressure fields of the fluid in the static mixer with different blade geometries are carried out. To evaluate the quality of the mixing performance, the results obtained from six blade designs are compared via the relative standard deviation and the amount of pressure drop along the mixing path.