Effect of Gravity on the Hydrodynamics in an Unbaffled Stirred Vessel

Abstract

The hydrodynamics in an unbaffled stirred vessel were simulated in order to highlight the effect of gravity on pressure and velocity distributions. Two fluids with different viscosity were studied for the laminar and turbulent flow regimes, respectively. The simulation results were compared with experimental data from the literature. Results indicate that for the higher-viscosity fluid, gravity only affects static pressure and that the effects of gravity on velocity and dynamic pressure are negligible. For the lower-viscosity fluid, however, gravity imposes a pronounced impact on static pressure, dynamic pressure, velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy. These findings indicate that careful consideration is necessary for the role that gravity plays in the study of free-surface hydrodynamics in unbaffled stirred vessels.

Free‐Surface Turbulent Flow in an Eccentric Stirred Tank

“…This is due to the weaknesses of the turbulence models. Yang and Zhou also arrived at the same conclusion when they studied the effect of gravity on the free-surface turbulent flow in an unbaffled concentric stirred tank [20]. Glover and Fitzpatrick [21] used the same approach for modeling the vortex in an unbaffled stirred tank.…”

Computational Fluid Dynamics Study of a Pharmaceutical Full-Scale Hydrogenation Reactor

“…Numerically, one of the first CFD models for unbaffled systems was performed by [24]. Since then, an increasing number of researchers have used different CFD models to study the free surface [25][26][27][28], the effect of rotational speed and fluid [29][30][31], using different conventional 2-eq. turbulence models [32] and more advanced turbulence models such as RSM [33][34][35], DES [30], and LES [36][37][38].…”