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PIV study of the flow field generated by a sawtooth impeller

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posted on 2013-01-16, 16:02 authored by Heema Unadkat, Chris RiellyChris Rielly, Zoltan NagyZoltan Nagy
Stereoscopic and high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques have been employed to study the flow field induced by a sawtooth (EkatoMizer) impeller, operated in the fully turbulent flow regime at an impeller speed of 1500 rpm. Ensemble-averaged mean flow fields and turbulence quantities were calculated for a region close to the impeller blades. The flow was found to be anisotropic near the impeller and exhibited return-to-isotropy behaviour further away from it. Macroinstabilities were found to have a high probability of occurrence in the discharge stream. All three velocity components from the stereo-PIV measurements were used to estimate the dissipation rate, by adopting a large eddy simulation (LES) analogy. Spurious vectors distorting the dissipation rate calculation were identified, and various standard deviation filters were applied for vector validation. By evaluating the filtered dissipation rate profiles against the multi-fractal intermittency model of Meneveau and Sreenivasan (1991), the global standard deviation filter was found to be the most suitable type. The ratio of the maximum to the mean dissipation rate for the EkatoMizer discharge stream was found to be similar to that reported for Rushton disk turbine and pitched-blade turbine impellers in the literature, raising questions about the reported high-shear advantage of sawtooth impellers.

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Chemical Engineering

Citation

UNADKAT, H., RIELLY, C.D. and NAGY, Z.K., 2011. PIV study of the flow field generated by a sawtooth impeller. Chemical Engineering Science, 66 (21), pp. 5374-5387.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2011

Notes

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in the journal Chemical Engineering Science. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2011.07.046

ISSN

0009-2509

Language

  • en