Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid

Mechanics

ISSN: 1994-2060 (Print) 1997-003X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tcfm20

Flow Characteristics in Mixers Agitated by Helical

Ribbon Blade Impeller
Yeng-Yung Tsui & Yu-Chang Hu
To cite this article: Yeng-Yung Tsui & Yu-Chang Hu (2011) Flow Characteristics in Mixers
Agitated by Helical Ribbon Blade Impeller, Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid
Mechanics, 5:3, 416-429, DOI: 10.1080/19942060.2011.11015383
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19942060.2011.11015383

Copyright 2011 Taylor and Francis Group

LLC
Published online: 19 Nov 2014.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 990

View related articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tcfm20
Download by: [14.97.105.8]

Date: 26 March 2016, At: 09:30

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 416429 (2011)

FLOW CHARACTERISTICS IN MIXERS AGITATED

BY HELICAL RIBBON BLADE IMPELLER
Yeng-Yung Tsui* and Yu-Chang Hu

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University,

Hsinchu, Chinese Taipei
* E-Mail: yytsui@mail.nctu.edu.tw (Corresponding Author)

ABSTRACT: The main concern of this study is to investigate the flow mixing generated by helical ribbon blade
impellers and to show that with the help of CFD the performance of the mixing system can be significantly improved
by optimizing the geometric configuration of the impeller. To fulfill this objective, a numerical model is developed
to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for the flow field. However, difficulties arise due to the rotation of the impeller
in the vessel. In order to ease the problem, the velocity field is assumed to be in a quasi-steady state and the
multiframe of reference is adopted to tackle the rotation of the impeller. For discretization the fully conservative
finite volume method, together with unstructured grid technology, is incorporated. It is shown that the flow in the
mixer can be regarded as a flow in an open channel with a wall moving at an angle with respect to the channel. The
influences of the blade pitch, the blade width, and the clearance gap between the blade and the surrounding wall are
examined. The mechanism to cause these effects is delineated in detail. It is demonstrated that after optimization of
the blade geometry, the circulating flow rate induced by the impeller is largely increased, leading to significant
reduction in mixing time. In addition, the power demand is reduced. It is also evidenced that by enlarging the
clearance, it is difficult for the fluid in this region to be mixed.
Keywords: mixing flows, stirred mixers, helical ribbon blade impellers, multiframe of reference, unstructuredgrid methods

system with helical ribbon impellers, mixing

proceeds first in the region near the blades and the
vessel wall where the fluid is subject to high shear
strains. Fluid homogenization is then fulfilled by
the axial vortex flow induced by the rotation of
the ribbon impeller. It has been shown that this
kind of impeller is very effective in mixing high
viscous fluids (Gray, 1963).
To characterize performance of mixing systems
two parameters are usually adopted: the power
number and the mixing time. One kind of power
number is defined in terms of viscosity
as N *p P / N 2 D 3 , where D is the diameter

1. INTRODUCTION
The mixing of fluids is a common operation
encountered in productions of polymer, food,
paint, and greases, to name a few. Poor mixing
may result in formation of dead zones, hot spots,
and temperature and concentration gradients,
which will affect the quality of the final products.
The selection of mixing systems depends on
operating conditions such as agitation speeds and
fluid properties. When the viscosity of the fluid is
low, the rotational speed of the agitator can be
high enough to produce turbulent flows. Most of
these systems involve the use of turbine impellers
such as Rushton turbines or pitched blades. For
highly viscous liquids, the flow is more likely in
the laminar regime because, otherwise, an
extremely high demand of power is required. The
use of small turbine impellers becomes inefficient
as stagnant zones may be formed in the region at
far distance from the impeller. To obtain adequate
mixing under laminar flow conditions, closeclearance impellers are usually adopted. Impellers
such as anchors, gates, or paddle impellers, which
produce mainly circumferential flow, perform
poorly in mixing because of lack of axial flow to
sweep through the entire vessel. In an agitating

of the impeller, N the rotational speed and P the

power consumption. A more common definition
of the power number is N P P / N 3 D 5 . These
two dimensionless numbers are related by

N *p N p Re

(1)

where Re ND 2 / is the Reynolds number.

For low-Reynolds number flows the power
consumption of the agitator is proportional to the
square of the rotational speed. As a
*
consequence, N p is independent of rotational

Received:1 Dec. 2010; Revised:19 Apr. 2011; Accepted:25 Apr. 2011

416

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

Another means is taken from the periodicity of

the response curve of a detector placed in the
vessel (Ryan et al., 1988; Hayes et al., 1998;
Dieulot et al., 2002; Delaplace et al., 2000b;
Curran et al., 2000). The dimensionless mixing
time Km represents the number of revolutions of
the impeller required to complete mixing and the
dimensionless circulation time Kc is that for a
complete flow loop. Both are independent of the
Reynolds number and are functions of the
impeller geometry. Although they are closely
related, the data for Kc are less scattered than
those for Km.
The circulation time is directly related to the
pumping capability of the impeller. The discharge
rate of the impeller can be estimated by

speed and becomes a constant (Kppel, 1979b;

Takahashi et al., 1982a).

N *p c1

(2)

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

This relation is valid for Reynolds numbers less

than about 40. The power number N *p is a function
of the geometric configuration of the mixing
system. Various correlations in terms of
geometric variables have been proposed in a
number of experimental studies (Kppel, 1979b;
Takahashi et al., 1980; Takahashi et al., 1982a;
Espinosa-Solares et al., 1997; Delaplace et al.,
2000a).
The mixing time is the time required for the flow
to reach a certain level of homogeneity. It was
revealed by experiments that the product of the
mixing time tm and the rotational speed N,
defining a dimensionless mixing time Km, is a
constant (Kppel, 1979b; Takahashi et al., 1982b;
Delaplace et al., 2000b)

Km Ntm c2

Qd

(5)

where vtot is the total fluid volume of the vessel.

Another method to find Qd is to integrate the axial
velocity profile obtained from measurements
(Carreau et al., 1976; Tanguy et al., 1992). A
circulation number KQ can be defined in terms of
Qd as

(3)

Various
methods,
including
conductivity
techniques (Rieger et al., 1986; Dieulot et al.,
2002), thermal techniques (Delaplace et al.,
2000b),
coloration/decoloration
techniques
(Carreau et al., 1976; Kppel, 1979a; Ryan et al.,
1988), liquid crystal techniques (Takahashi et al.,
1982b; Takahashi et al., 1988), and chemical
reaction techniques (Hayes et al., 1998), have
been adopted to measure the mixing time.
However, the determination of the degree of the
mixing homogeneity depends on the techniques
used. This results in considerable scatter in the
constant, which makes the comparison of mixing
performance difficult.
In addition to the mixing time, circulation time is
also often employed as a criterion for evaluation
of the mixing performance. It is the time for a
fluid element to complete a vertical circulating
loop in the vessel during the mixing process. It is
generally recognized that the circulation time is
proportional to the mixing time. Therefore, the
dimensionless circulation Kc, defined as the
product of the circulation time tc by the rotational
speed, is also a constant for a specific mixing
system (Takahashi et al., 1989; Delaplace et al.,
2000b).

Kc Ntc c3

vtot
tc

KQ

Qd
ND 3

(6)

The circulation number is affected by the

geometry of the mixing system and the fluid
properties (Curran et al., 2000; Carreau et al.,
1976).
The geometrical configuration of a mixer plays a
significant role in determination of the mixing
performance. The design of a mixing system was
mainly based on correlations obtained from
experiments. These empirical correlations are
usually applicable in limited ranges and their use
in scaling up may be questionable. The
development of computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) provides an alternative tool to fulfill this
purpose. Finite element methods were adopted by
Tanguy and coworkers to study the mixers with
different kinds of impellers as described in the
following. A helical ribbon screw impeller, i.e. a
helical ribbon blade in the outer region and a
screw blade attached to the impeller shaft, was
under examination by Tanguy et al. (1992). The
entire volume of fluid in the tank is assumed to be
mounted on a rotational frame in the simulation.
The flow field can then be regarded as steady.
Good agreements with experiments were reported
in terms of the circulation time and torque. This
method was also used to model the mixing flow
of second-order fluids stirred by a helical ribbon

(4)

A direct way to find the circulation time is to

follow the trajectory of a suspended particle
(Takahashi et al., 1989; Gurin et al., 1984).
417

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

rate near the tip of the impeller. The

proportionality constant associated with this
linear relation is largely independent of the flow
behavior index and dependent on the geometric
parameters of the system. The mixing of
pseudoplastic fluids by anchor impellers was
investigated by Prajapati and Ein-Mozaffari (2009)
using the FLUENT. The mixing time and power
consumption results indicate that an anchor
impeller with four blades is more efficient than
that with two blades. The FLUENT was also
employed by Rahimi et al. (2010). It was shown
that after modifying a helical ribbon impeller by
placing two 450 flat blades on the bars connecting
the ribbon blade and the shaft, the mixing
performance is improved with a negligible
increase in power consumption.
The requirement of optimization of a design to
improve its efficiency becomes essential in recent
days due to the increasing cost of energy and the
growing concern about the environment. The fast
development of CFD makes it a useful tool for
this goal. As examples, it was used by Idahosa et
al. (2008) to optimize a fan blade and by Wu et al.
(2008) and Yedidiah (2008) to improve
performances of centrifugal pumps. In such
studies, commercial codes are most often utilized.
A computational method, based on the fully
conservative finite volume method and the
unstructured grid technology, had been developed
by the group of the authors (Tsui and Pan, 2006).
It is efficient and robust in dealing with flows
with complex domain geometry. This method was
further extended to include multiframe of
reference to handle the rotation of impeller in
mixing systems (Tsui et al., 2006; Tsui and Hu,
2008).
Although attempts had been made to compare
different setups of mixing systems in previous
studies, comparisons were undertaken only in
limited ranges of variation of geometrical
parameters. In this study, the geometric variables
of a mixing system agitated by a helical ribbon
blade impeller are allowed to vary to a large
extent. The aim is to look into their effects and to
optimize the configuration so that the mixing
performance is improved.

blade by Bertrand et al. (1999). In the study

conducted by Devals et al. (2008), the flow
characteristics in a Maxblend impeller mixer were
examined. It focused on the effects of the
Reynolds number and the bottom clearance of the
impeller on the power consumption, the
distribution of shear rates and the overall flow
pictures. For dual, coaxial impeller systems the
two impellers may rotate at different speeds. To
cope with this situation, the above method needs
to be extended to include two rotational frames
with each impeller located in a different frame. In
the mixer considered by Tanguy et al. (1997), a
Rushton turbine is placed beneath a helical ribbon
impeller. It was shown that the dual impeller
outperforms the standard helical ribbon in terms
of pumping. Thibault and Tanguy (2002)
considered a coaxial mixer with an anchor in the
outer region and eight rods along with a pitchedblade turbine in the inner region. The predictions
of power consumption agree with experiments
closely.
A lot of studies simply employed commercial
codes as the analytical tool. The finite-element
software POLY3D was utilized by de la Villon
et al. (1998) to analyze three different impeller
mixers of the helical ribbon type. In this code, the
surface is represented by a series of control nodes
located on its surface. These nodes are placed
inside the elements of the vessel. Impeller speed
is imposed on the nodes using constrained
optimization techniques. At each time step, the
velocity and position of the control nodes are
updated (Bertrand et al. 1997). Their simulations
lead to the conclusion that the double helical
ribbon impeller is more efficient than the single
helical ribbon one and that adding a central screw
does not enhance mixing efficiency. Rivera et al.
(2006) also adopted the POLY3D to investigate a
dual impeller mixer consisting of an anchor in the
near wall region and a Rushton turbine in the core.
The agitator operates in either co-rotating or
counter-rotating mode. It was found that the corotating mode is more efficient than the counterrotating mode in terms of energy consumption,
pumping rate and mixing time. The finite-volume
software FLUENT was employed to analyze the
mixing of pseudoplastic fluids with a helical
ribbon impeller by both Ihejirika and EinMozaffari (2007) and Shekhar and Jayanti (2003).
The multiframe of reference is used to cope with
the rotation of the impeller. The numerical results
in the former study showed good agreement with
experiments and correlations. It was seen from the
later study that there exists a linear relationship
between the impeller speed and the local shear

2. MATHEMATICAL METHOD
A sketch of the top view and side view of the
agitating system is shown in Fig. 1. The flow in
the vessel is inevitably unsteady and threedimensional. Fully time-dependent computations
for 3D flow are very time-consuming. The
simulation of the velocity field in the agitating
418

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

interface between the two regions is nearly placed

at half the distance between the inner edge of the
blade and the shaft. It is noted that if the
rotational region is severely restricted to the blade,
the large variation of the velocity through the
interface may cause numerical instability. The
governing equations can then be cast into the
following dimensionless form.

ds
W

h1

rotational
frame

Vj
rotational
frame

H h

x j

pressure p are non-dimensionalized by D, ND,

and N 2 D 2 , respectively. In the equations,

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

Fig.1

(8)

where the coordinates x j , velocities Vj and

stationary frame

(7)

p 1 Vi
(V jVi )
(
) qi
x j
xi x j Re x j

h1

V j represents the fluid velocity relative to the

Illustration of mixer configuration.

rotational grid.

Vj V j V jg

mixer can become easier by assuming a quasisteady state. This steady state assumption can be
regarded as a snapshot in photography. The
steady-state predictions by Wechsler et al. (1999)
for the flow induced by a pitched-blade impeller
showed a close agreement with the fully unsteady
calculations, at a cost of only a fraction of the
computer time of the latter. In steady-state
calculations, the impeller is frozen at a specific
position without moving. To make the fluid flow,
the volume swept by the impeller is mounted on a
rotational frame. The body forces generated by
the rotational frame trigger off fluid movement. If
the driving momentum of the impeller is large
enough, the fluid flow follows the rotation of the
impeller closely. Thus, the entire volume of the
vessel can be regarded as moving with the
impeller and it can be assumed that the whole
vessel rotates with the impeller in the simulation
(Tanguy et al., 1992; Bertrand et al. 1999; Devals
et al., 2008). However, the geometry of the
impeller blade is largely varied in our study. As
the blade width or the impeller pitch becomes
small, the rotational effect will be limited only to
the region around the impeller. The assumption of
a single rotational frame becomes not appropriate.
Therefore, multiple frames are adopted in our
calculations. The multiframe of reference has also
been adopted by Rahimi et al. (2010) in
calculating the flow in helical ribbon impeller
mixers. As shown in Fig. 1, the vessel is divided
into two parts. The inner part is stationary while a
rotational frame is imposed on the outer part
where the helical blade impeller is located. The

(9)

Here V j is the absolute velocity and V jg the

velocity of the computational grid, defined as

V jg 0 in the stationary frame

(10a)

V jg jpq p x q in the rotational frame

(10b)

where jpq is the alternating unit tensor and

p the angular velocity of the impeller. It is

noted that although velocity is assigned to the grid
in the rotational region, the mesh in this region is
fixed without motion.
The source term in the momentum equation
represents the body forces induced by the rotation
of the impeller and does not appear in the
stationary frame. In the rotational frame, it can be
expressed as

q j mnj mVng 2 mnjm (Vn Vng )

(11)

The first term stands for the centrifugal force and

the second term the Coriolis force.
As for boundary conditions, the upper boundary is
assumed to be a free surface at which the shear
stress is zero. The other boundaries are solid walls
with no-slip conditions being imposed. Hence, a
rotational velocity is assigned at the surface of the
impeller shaft. The surrounding wall and part of
the bottom wall of the vessel are located on the
rotational frame. Rotational velocities in the
direction opposite to that of the impeller are
419

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

the face. In the equation is a weighting value

between 0 and 1, corresponding to the first-order
and second-order upwind difference schemes,
respectively. Similar to the high-order schemes
used in structured-grid calculations, this secondorder upwind difference scheme may also result
in solution oscillations and cause instability. To
solve this problem, a value of 0.9 is assigned to .
The diffusive flux on the right hand side of Eq.
(13) is modeled by the following approximation.

specified there so that the no-slip condition is

satisfied.
A usual means to cope with irregular geometry of
the flow field is the use of the finite element
method which adopts unstructured grids.
However, with this method the system of
algebraic equations raised requires large amounts
of computer resources to solve these equations.
Another way is to incorporate curvilinear
coordinates into the finite difference method. For
complex geometries the domain can not be
covered by one single curvilinear mesh; it must be
partitioned into a number of blocks with a
curvilinear coordinate system defined in each of
the blocks. Solutions are sought in each block and
iteration must be performed among these blocks.
Special care must be taken at the interface
between two neighboring blocks to ensure
coupling. Thus, the solution procedure is
complicated and requires a lot of computing
efforts during iteration. To overcome the above
difficulties, the unstructured grid technology is
incorporated into the finite volume method in this
study. With this method the principle of
conservation law is obeyed by using the
divergence theorem of Gauss. To discretize the
continuity and momentum equations, they are
integrated over a control volume to yield

V
f sf 0

s 2f

f s f
(C P )
PC s f

s 2f

f (s f
PC )
PC s f

(15)

where, see Fig. 2a, the subscripts P and C denote

the principal and the neighboring nodes sharing a

common face f, and PC is a distance vector

connecting these two nodes. The face gradient

f is obtained via interpolation from the

gradients at the nodes P and C.

(12)

(
V
f s f ) f Re f s f qv
f
f
where represents

each

of

the

(13)
velocity

components V , the subscripts f denote the face

value, s f is the surface vector of a face (see Fig.

2a), v is the volume of the considered cell and
the source term q includes both the pressure

(a)
stationary domain

gradient and the body forces. The summation is

over all the faces surrounding the cell.
The term on the left hand side of Eq. (13)
represents convective flux through the surface of
the control volume. The face value f needs to be

rotating domain

estimated using neighboring nodal values, which

is approximated by the following scheme.

f UD ( )UD

(14)
(b)

where the superscripts UD denote the value

evaluated at a node upstream of the face under

consideration and is the distance vector

directed from the upwind node to the centroid of

Fig. 2

420

(a) a control volume with a neighboring cell

and (b) a typical grid.

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

diameter ds=0.048D. It rotates at a speed N=30

rpm, corresponding to Reynolds number 5.

It needs to be noted that the difference equations

for the nodes just next to the interface between
the two reference frames include nodal velocities
in the other frame. To correctly account for the
momentum flux transported through the interface,
the velocities at the other frame must be
transformed onto the frame where the considered
node is located.
After discretization, the momentum equation can
be solved to find velocities using prevailing
pressure. However, the resulting velocity field
does not satisfy the continuity and the pressure
field needs to be updated. A pressure equation can
be obtained by adjusting the velocities such that
the continuity equation is satisfied in each cell.
The solution procedure is to solve the momentum
equation and the pressure equation in an iterative
manner until convergence is reached. Details
about the method can be found in Tsui and Pan
(2006).
With the velocity field obtained, the mixing of
two fluids can be calculated by solving the
following mass transport equation.

C
1 C
(VjC )
(
)
t x j
x j P e x j

3.1

Grid sensitivity and validation tests

A typical grid required in simulation is displayed

in Fig. 2b. Grid sensitivity tests have been
conducted using meshes with 106080, 204000,
304800, and 405408 cells. The resulting power
numbers N *p are 317, 337, 344, and 345 for the
different grids, which are in good agreement with
the measured value 334 given by Kppel (1979b).
The corresponding circulation numbers KQ are
0.0634, 0.0626, 0.0624, and 0.0624. It is clear that
the solution reaches grid independence for the
two highest resolution meshes. In the following,
meshes with about 300000 cells are used in
calculations. To further validate the present
method, comparison of the power numbers with
the experimental data of Kppel (1979b) for two
pitch values S=0.5D and 1D and three clearance
values C=0.0105D, 0.029D and 0.053D is
provided in Table 1. It is obvious that reasonably
good agreement is obtained by our calculations.

(16)
3.2

where C is the concentration of one of the fluids,

based on mass fraction, being in the range of 0
and 1. The Peclet number Pe is related to the
Reynolds number Re by Pe=Re*Sc. Here Sc is
the Schmidt number defined as Sc=/D,
whereis the kinematic viscosity and D the mass
diffusivity.

Flow structure

As illustrated in Fig. 3a, the main feature of the

flow in the vessel is a downward flow in the outer
region near the wall, which is dragged by the
ribbon blade due to the rotation of the impeller. It
is followed by an upward stream in the inner
region to complete a looping flow. The flow field
is complicated by having some minor loops at the
inner edge of the blade impeller. The pressure
distribution on a cylindrical surface at r=0.45D
(corresponding to the surface at the mid-width of
the ribbon blade) is shown in Fig. 3b. It can be
detected that the pressure at the bottom of the
vessel is higher than that at the top and there
exists a pressure difference across the channel
formed by the impeller blade. The cause of the
flow patterns seen in Fig. 3 can be illustrated in a
schematic drawing of the flow in an open channel.
As shown in Fig. 4, the open channel is formed by
the blade of the impeller and the wall of the vessel.
The wall on the bottom is the impeller shaft. The
open part in the lower region represents the core

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The arrangement of the mixing system has been
given in Fig. 1. A basic configuration consists of
a helical ribbon impeller of diameter D=330mm
and a vessel of diameter T=337mm (T/D=1.0212).
The ribbon blade is assumed to have a thickness
of 5mm and a width W=0.1D. The height of the
impeller is h=1D and that of the vessel is H=1.1D.
Therefore, the clearance between the impeller and
the surrounding wall of the vessel is C=0.0106D
and the off-bottom clearance is h1= 0.05D. The
impeller has a pitch S= 0.5D and the shaft has a
*

Table 1 Comparison of power number N p with experiments for different pitches and clearances

Predictions
Experiments

S/D=0.5

S/D=1.

C/D=0.0105

C/D=0.029

C/D=0.053

344
334

212
242

348
334

240
246

196
208

421

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

region in the vessel. The clearance between the

blade and the wall of the vessel is ignored. For an
impeller with a single blade there is only one
channel formed and for a double-blade impeller
two channels exist. The flow can be regarded as
periodic with respect to the channel sides. It is
assumed that the impeller remains motionless and
the wall of the vessel moves at a velocity Vw. This
velocity is decomposed into a component Vc
along the channel and a component Vt in the
transverse direction. The pitch angle is defined
as the helical angle of the ribbon blade with
respect to the horizontal plane. The flow in the
channel is driven by the velocity component Vc,
which gives rise to a pressure increase from pin at
the top of the vessel to pout at the bottom in Fig. 4.
Owing to the adverse pressure gradient, reverse
flow forms in the open part (i.e. the lower part) of
the channel, corresponding to the upward stream
in the inner region of the vessel in Fig. 3a. The
flow in the transverse direction induced by Vt
results in a pressure gradient across the channel
with a higher pressure pp on the left side of the
channel and a lower pressure ps on the right side.
The pressure side of the channel corresponds to
the lower side of the blade and the suction side to
the upper side of the blade. The pressure
difference between the two sides is approximately
related to the pressure rise in the channel by the
following equation.

(a)

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

p
129
127
125
123
121
119
117
115
113
111
109
107
105
103
101
99
97
95
93
91
89
87
85

(b)

Fig. 3

(a) Flow field on a vertical plane and (b)

pressure distribution on the cylindrical surface
at r=0.45D

( p out pin ) Az ( p p p s ) As cos Fz

(17)

where Az is the cross-sectional area, As the sidepin

Vw

pp
As

Vt

wall area, and Fz the axial component of the

frictional force exerted on the channel walls. The
relationship is obtained from the force balance for
the channel in which the momentum fluxes are
ignored. As a result of the pressure difference
between the two sides of the blade, secondary
vortices directing from the pressure side (the
lower side of the blade) to the suction side (the
upper side of the blade) are formed at the inner
edge of the blade, as observed in Fig. 3a. Fluid
leak may be detected at the outer edge if the
clearance between the blade and the wall of the
vessel is large enough. The opening of the
channel at the two edges results in decrease of the
pressure difference on the two blade sides as well
as the axial pressure gradient.

Az

Vc

ps
As

pout Az

Fig. 4

3.3

Illustration of flow field in vessel as flow in

open channel.

Effects of impeller pitch

The influence of the impeller pitch on the power

consumption is shown in Fig. 5a. The power is

422

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

the impeller blade becomes negligible because the

transverse velocity component Vt is extremely
small. The moving wall mainly drives the fluid to
flow along the channel. As a consequence, large
amounts of power are required to overcome the
high frictional resistance. On the contrary, the
flow driven by the wall is mainly in the transverse
direction at large pitches, where the blade is in the
vertical position at the limit of 900. Therefore, the
flow in the vessel rotates with the impeller and
the power exerted is simply used to overcome the
pressure difference between the two sides of the
impeller blade. There is a crossover of the two
curves for N *p , f and N *p , p , which is located at

W/D=0.1

NP

exp(Kappel)
400

NP
N*P,p
*

NP,f
200

(a)

S/D

about S/D=2.1.
The discharge flux induced by the impeller is
defined as

0.12

KQ

0.11

W/D=0.1
W/D=0.25

0.09

0.07
0.06
0.05
0.04

Fig. 5

S/D

Variation of (a) power number and (b)

circulation number against impeller pitch.

given by P 2 N , where is the torque

exerted on the impeller and is obtained by taking
moments about the central axis for the pressure
and the frictional forces over the surface of the
impeller. As seen from the figure, the power
number N *p , defined as N *p P / N 2 D 3 , is large

10
8

at small pitches. It falls quickly when the pitch is

increased, followed by a gradual decrease at
sufficiently large pitches. The power number
approaches 160 as the pitch becomes infinite. The
limited experimental data provided by Kppel
(1979b) were also shown in the figure for
comparison. A similar trend between the present
calculations and the measurements can be seen as
S/D is enlarged from 0.5 to 1. The power
consumed by the impeller can be divided into two
parts, corresponding to the actions of the
frictional force ( N *p , f ) and the pressure force
(N

*
p, p

Rv

R0

(18)

where Rs is the radius of the shaft, Rv the radius of

the vessel, and R0 the location at which the
velocity Vz is zero. The velocity Vz is the mean
axial velocity averaged over the circumferential
direction at mid-height of the vessel. Fig. 6 shows
examples of the variation of the mean axial
velocity. The absolute values of the two integrals
in the equation must be identical because the mass
must be conserved. The variation of the
circulation number KQ, defined in terms of Qd as
in equation (6), with respect to the impeller pitch
is shown in Fig. 5b. The flow rates pumped by the
impeller are low at low and high values of pitch.
As noted above, although the velocity component

0.08

(b)

R0

Rs

Q d 2 Vz rdr 2 Vz rdr

S/D=1/3
S/D=0.5
S/D=0.9
S/D=2
S/D=4
S/D=

Vz

6
4

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

0.1

2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
0

). At low values of pitch, i.e. at small

values of pitch angle in Fig. 4, the channel is

elongated and the transverse width is reduced.
The pressure difference between the two sides of

Fig. 6

423

0 .2

r/D

0.4

Distribution of mean axial velocity

component at mid-height of the vessel for
different pitches.

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

at low values of width, followed by a gradual

decrease. As for the part due to the pressure, it
increases with the blade width in a monotone
manner.
The variation of the circulation number illustrated
in Fig. 7b reveals that the circulating flow
induced by the impeller is strengthened by
widening the blade at low values of width. When
the width of the blade W becomes greater than
0.26D, the flow rate starts to decline. This is
ascribed to the open space in the central region of
the vessel being reduced severely and, thus, the
returning flow in this open space extends into the
channel region. This phenomenon becomes clear
in view of the mean axial velocity profile shown
in Fig. 8. In the present case, the impeller pitch is
set at S/D=0.5. It can be seen in Fig. 7b that when
the pitch is increased to S/D=1, the location of
maximum KQ is decreased to W/D=0.21.

NP
400

300

S/D=0.5
*

NP
*
NP,p
*
NP,f

200

100

0.1

0.2

(a)

W/D

0.3

0.4

0.12

KQ

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

0. 1

0.08

25

S/D= 0.5
S/D= 1.0

0.06

Vz

20

W/D=0.1
W/D=0.25
W/D=0.4

0.04

15
0.02

0.4

10

Variation of (a) power number and (b)

circulation number against blade width.

0.1

0.2

(b)

Fig. 7

0.3

W/D

Vc along the channel increases with the decreasing

pitch angle, the width of the channel is reduced.
There is no flow in the limiting case =0 because
the impeller is transformed into a solid cylinder.
In the other limit =900, the channel becomes
vertical. The fluid simply rotates with the impeller
and Qd also becomes zero. There is a peak KQ at
S/D=0.9 for the present configuration. The
location of peak KQ is affected by the arrangement
of the geometry. For example, when the blade
width W is enlarged from 0.1D in the benchmark
case to 0.25D, the peak location is shifted to
S/D=0.7, as shown in the figure. It can also be
seen that the circulation number becomes higher.
3.4

-5
-10

Fig. 8

3.5

0.1

0.2

r/D

0 .3

0.4

0.5

Distribution of mean axial velocity

component at mid-height of vessel for
different blade widths.

Effects of clearance gap

It is shown in Fig. 9a that the power number

decreases with the enlargement of the clearance
gap, with a large decline rate at small clearances.
Comparing with the measurements of Kppel
(1979b), the same trend can be identified. The
variation of N *p follows that of N *p , f closely. Also

Effects of blade width

Fig. 7a shows that the power number increases

with increasing width of the blade. It is the
frictional part dominating the power consumption
due to the small impeller pitch S/D=0.5 as
discussed above. The power number of the
frictional part N *p , f increases with the blade width

shown in the figure are the power numbers due to

the contributions of the two working blade
surfaces and the one facing the clearance gap.
Although the area of the latter is much smaller
than the two main ones, its contribution to the
power number can not be ignored. Especially at

424

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

number. To support this point, the performances

of two blade configurations are compared in the
following. The first is the benchmark one with
pitch S=0.5D and width W=0.1D and the second
is an optimized one with S=0.7D and W=0.25D.
Initially, the volume of 10% of the vessel height
at the top is covered by a fluid with concentration
C=1 and the rest is occupied by the other fluid
with concentration C=0. The Schmidt number is
assumed to be 1.6*107, which corresponds to that
of glucose syrup. Calculations are conducted up
to 200 revolutions. To measure the degree of
mixing, a mixing index is defined by

W /D=0.1, S/D=0.5
exp (Kappel)
N*P
N*P ,p
N*P ,f
lower side part of N*P,f
upper side part of N*P,f
clearance side part of N*P,f

500
*

NP
400

300

200

100

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

C C v C C v

C C v 2C (1 C )v
i

0.1

(a)

C/D

o
i

K 0 .0 8
Q

(19)

tot

0 .0 6

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

where Ci is the concentration at a computational

cell which has a volume v , Cio the initial value,

W/D=0.1, S/D=0.5

0 .0 4
0 .0 2
0

(b)

Fig. 9

0.02

0 .0 4

C/D0.0 6

0 .08

C the concentration after fully mixing, vtot the

0.1

total volume of the vessel. The summation is

taken over all the vessel cells. The mixing
index stands for deviation of the mixing away
from uniform distribution of the two fluids. Its
value is one initially and becomes zero when the
mixing is complete. It is evident from Fig. 10 that
the performance of the optimum configuration is
much superior to the benchmark one. The mixing
indices at a number of revolution numbers are
shown in Table 2. This index is 0.169 after 100
revolutions and 0.107 after 200 revolutions for the
benchmark case, comparing with the values 0.082
and 0.024 at the corresponding times for the

Variation of (a) power number and (b)

circulation number against clearance.

small clearances, it is higher than those of the two

working surfaces. The fast decline in the power
number at low clearances is mainly ascribable to
the quick decrease of this part because the strain
rates generated by the rotating blade are greatly
decreased. The part of power number due to the
pressure force N *p , p also decreases, but at a slow
rate, when the clearance is enlarged. This is
resulted from the reduction of the pressure
difference between the two blade sides.
As seen from Fig. 9b, the circulating flow rate is
not much affected by the appearance of clearance.
The circulation number slightly falls off for large
clearances. It can be understood that the
appearance of the clearance gap causes reduction
of the pressure difference between the two blade
sides. This, in turn, leads to decrease of the axial
pressure gradient according to equation (17). As a
consequence, the force to drive the fluid to flow
upward in the central region of the vessel is
reduced.
3.6

0.8

benchmark blade
W/D=0.1, S/D= 0.5
0.6

optimized blade
W/D=0.25, S/D= 0.7
0.4

0.2

Mixing performance

It can be drawn from the above results that the

pitch and the width of the blade must be
optimized for larger circulating flow rate and
lower power consumption. Examination of Figs.
5b and 7b reveals that the pitch in the range 0.7D1D and the blade width in the range 0.2D-0.26D
give better performance in terms of the circulation

50

100

150

200

Nt(no. of revolutions)
Fig. 10 Comparing mixing performance of
benchmark with optimized configurations.

425

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

Table 2 Comparison of mixing index

revolution numbers

at four

0.5

C/D=0.01

Nt=20
Nt=100
Nt=200

0.4

Benchmark
case
Optimized
case
Nt=0

Nt=50

Nt=100

Nt=150

Nt=200

0.266

0.169

0.131

0.107

0.170

0.082

0.044

0.024

Nt=20

N t=1 00

0.2

0.1

C
0.2
0.19
0.18
0.17
0.16
0.15
0.14
0.13
0.12
0.11
0.1
0.09
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0

(a)
Nt=0

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

0.3

N t=2 0

Nt=10 0

(b)

0.1

(a)

0. 2

0.6

0.3

r/D 0.4

0.6

C/D=0.1

Nt=20
Nt=100
Nt=200

0.5

C
0.2
0.1 9
0.1 8
0.1 7
0.1 6
0.1 5
0.1 4
0.1 3
0.1 2
0.1 1
0.1
0.0 9
0.0 8
0.0 7
0.0 6
0.0 5
0.0 4
0.0 3
0.0 2
0.0 1
0

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

Fig. 11 Concentration contours on a vertical plane

after 0, 20 and 100 revolutions for (a)
benchmark impeller and (b) optimized
impeller.

0.1
0

0.1

0.2

(b)

0.3

r/D

0.4

0.5

0.6

Fig. 12 Distribution of mean concentration at midheight of vessel for two different clearances:
(a) C=0.01D and (b) C=0.1D.

optimized one. This result of comparison is not

surprising in view of the circulation number of
0.114 for the optimum blade and 0.062 for the
benchmark blade. As for the power number, the
optimum configuration has a value 309, which is
lower than the value 348 for the benchmark. Thus,
not only the mixing effectiveness is enhanced by
optimizing the initial design, but also less power
is consumed. The above results are also evidenced
in Fig. 11, in which the concentration contours on
a vertical plane are shown. It can be seen that the
distribution of the concentration becomes fairly
uniform after 100 revolutions for the optimum
one, but not for the benchmark one. The central
region in each half plane is not well mixed
because it is the core location of the circulating
flow and the flow velocity is low there.
Calculations have also been undertaken to
examine the effect of clearance on the mixing. Fig.
12 shows the concentration averaged over the
circumference at mid-height of the vessel for two
gap clearances. It is clear that the fluid remains
not to be well mixed near the wall as the
clearance is increased from 0.01D to 0.1D, even
after 200 revolutions. High concentrations persist
in this region for the latter case. The peak
concentration there is 0.249 after 100 revolutions

and 0.218 after 200 revolutions while the mean

concentration for complete mixing is 0.113. This
is the main reason why the clearance needs to be
kept small in most industrial mixing systems
despite its higher power consumption. It can also
easily be identified that the mixing is poor in the
central region, as indicated above.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The flow in a vessel stirred by a helical ribbon
impeller has been investigated by the numerical
method. The method is based on the assumption
of quasi-steady state for the velocity field and the
multiframe of reference is used to deal with the
rotation of the impeller. A summary of the main
findings is drawn as follows.
1. The flow in the vessel can be interpreted as a
flow in an open channel with a moving wall.
The channel is formed by the two side
surfaces of the ribbon blade and the wall of
the vessel which moves at the pitch angle of
the blade with respect to the channel. The
velocity component along the channel drives
426

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

because the large velocity gradient prevailing in

this region may be under-predicted. In the near
future, we will examine its effect on prediction
accuracy via comparing uses of both two and
three frames.
Mixing operations encountered in chemical and
food industries frequently involve highly viscous
fluids such as polymers, resin and pastes. These
fluids usually exhibit non-Newtonian nature due
to the dependence of the viscosity on the flow
strain rate.
Therefore, it is important to
investigate the impact of rheological complexities
on mixing performances for industrial
applications. The extension of the present method
to account for the non-Newtonian behavior of
such fluids is currently underway.

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

the flow downward in the outer region of the

vessel, creating a pressure gradient in the
axial direction. This adverse pressure gradient
forces the fluid to flow upward in the central
region of the vessel to form a looping flow.
The velocity component in the transverse
direction brings about a pressure gradient
across the channel, with a higher pressure at
the lower side of the blade. As a result,
secondary vortices directing from the lower
side toward the upper side are formed at the
inner edge of the blade.
2. The pitch of the blade has a significant
influence on the performance of the mixer.
When the pitch decreases, the velocity
component of the moving wall to drive the
flow along the channel is increased. However,
the channel is lengthened and the crosssectional area is decreased, resulting in
increase of flow resistance. Therefore, to have
a better design the pitch needs to be optimized.
For the configurations considered in this
study this value falls in the range S=0.7D to
1D.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the National Science
Council under the contract number NSC-96-2221E-009-135-MY2. Acknowledgment is due to one
of the reviewers who indicates the necessity to
separate the clearance gap from the rotating frame
and to divide the vessel into three frames.

3. At small values of blade width, the discharge

flow rate increases with the width. However,
as the width becomes sufficiently large, the
reverse flow in the central region of the vessel
will extend into the blade channel because the
open space is limited. Thus, the flow rate is
reduced. A better blade width in the present
study is in the range W=0.2D to 0.26D.

REFERENCES
1. Bertrand F, Tanguy PA, Thibault F (1997). A
three-dimensional fictitious domain method
for incompressible fluid flow problems.
International Journal for Numerical Methods
in Fluids 25:719-736.
2. Bertrand F, Tanguy PA, Brito de la Fuente E,
Carreau P (1999). Numerical modeling of the
mixing flow of second-order fluids with
helical ribbon impellers. Computer Methods
in Applied Mechanics and Engineering
180:267-280.
3. Carreau PJ, Patterson I, Yap CY (1976).
Mixing of viscoelastic fluids with helicalribbon agitators I mixing time and flow
patterns. The Canadian Journal of Chemical
Engineering 54:135-142.
4. Curran SJ, Hayes RE, Afacan A, Williams
MC, Tanguy PA (2000). Experimental mixing
study of a yield stress fluid in a laminar
stirred tank. Industrial & Engineering
Chemistry Research 39:195-202.
5. De la Villon J, Bertrand F, Tanguy PA,
Labrie R, Bousquet J, Lebouvier D (1998).
Numerical investigation of mixing efficiency
of helical ribbons. AICHE Journal 44(4):972977.

4. The enlargement of the clearance gap results

in large reduction of power consumption, but
has little effect on the circulating flow rate.
However, the fluid in the clearance region is
difficult to be mixed with the other fluid if the
clearance is large.
5. It is demonstrated that after the width and the
pitch of the impeller blade are optimized, the
circulating flow rate is largely increased,
resulting in significant decrease of mixing
time. Besides, the power consumption is also
reduced. It is also seen that by enlarging the
clearance gap, it is difficult for the fluid in the
clearance region to be well mixed.
In our calculations, the vessel was separated into
two frames of reference (one stationary and one
rotating frame) and reasonably good agreement
with measurements was obtained in terms of
power and circulation numbers. However, the
inclusion of the clearance gap in the rotating
frame may lead to a certain degree of error
427

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

6. Delaplace G., Leuliet J-C, Ronse G (2000a).

Power requirement when mixing a shearthickening fluid with a helical ribbon impeller
type. Chemical Engineering & Technology
23(4):329-336.
7. Delaplace G., Leuliet JC, Relandeau V
(2000b). Circulation and mixing times for
helical ribbon impellers. Review and
experiments. Experiments in Fluids 28:170182.
8. Devals C, Heniche M, Takenaka K, Tanguy
PA (2008). CFD analysis of several design
parameters affecting the performance of the
maxblend impeller. Computers & Chemical
Engineering 32:1831-1841.
9. Dieulot J-Y, Delaplace G., Guerin R, Brienne
J-P, Leuliet J-C (2002). Laminar mixing
performances of a stirred tank equipped with
helical ribbon agitator subjected to steady and
unsteady rotational speed. Transactions of the
Institution of Chemical Engineers 80(A):335344.
10. Espinosa-Solares T, Brito-de la Fuente E,
Tecante A, Tanguy PA (1997). Power
consumption of a dual turbine-helical ribbon
impeller mixer in ungassed conditions.
Chemical Engineering Journal 67:215-219.
11. Gray JB (1963). Batch mixing of viscous
liquids. Chemical Engineering Progress
59(3):55-59.
12. Gurin P, Carreau PJ, Patterson WI, Paris J
(1984). Characterization of helical impellers
by circulation times. The Canadian Journal of
Chemical Engineering 62:301-309.
13. Hayes RE, Afacan A, Boulanger B, Tanguy
PA (1998). Experimental study of reactive
mixing in a laminar flow batch reactor.
Transactions of the Institution of Chemical
Engineers 76(A):73-81.
14. Idahosa U, Golubev VV, Balabanov VO
(2008). An automated optimal design of a fan
blade using an integrated CFD/MDO
computer
environment.
Engineering
Applications
of
Computational
Fluid
Mechanics 2(2):141-154.
15. Ihejirika I, Ein-Mozaffari F (2007). Using
CFD and ultrasonic velocimetry to study the
mixing of pseudoplastic fluids with a helical
ribbon impeller. Chemical Engineering &
Technology 30(5):606-614.
16. Kppel M (1979a). Development and
application of a method for measuring the
mixture quality of miscible liquids. II.
Experimental arrangement and experimental
procedures.
International
Chemical
Engineering 19(3):431-445.

17. Kppel M (1979b). Development and

application of a method for measuring the
mixture quality of miscible liquids. III.
Application of the new method for highly
viscous newtonian liquid. International
Chemical Engineering 19(4):571-590.
18. Prajapati P, Ein-Mozaffari F (2009). CFD
investigation of the mixing of yieldpseudoplastic fluids with anchor impellers.
Chemical Engineering & Technology
32(8):1211-1218.
19. Rahimi M, Kakekhani A, Alsairafi AA (2010).
Experimental and computational fluid
dynamic (CFD) studies on mixing
characteristics of a modified helical ribbon
impeller. Korean Journal of Chemical
Engineering 27(4):1150-1158.
20. Rieger F, Novak V, Havelkova D (1986).
Homogenization efficiency of helical ribbon
agitators. Journal of Chemical Engineering
33(3):143-150.
21. Rivera C, Foucault S, Heniche M, EspinosaSolares T, Tanguy PA (2006). Mixing
analysis in a coaxial mixer. Chemical
Engineering Science 61:2895-2907.
22. Ryan DF, Janssen LPBM, van Dierendonck
LL (1988). Circulation time prediction in the
scale-up of polymerization reactors with
helical
ribbon
agitators.
Chemical
Engineering Science 43(8):1961-1966.
23. Shekhar SM, Jayanti S (2003). Mixing of
pseudoplastic fluids using helical ribbon
impellers. AICHE Journal 49(11):2768-2772.
24. Takahashi K, Arai K, Saito S (1980). Power
correlation for anchor and helical ribbon
impellers in highly viscous liquids. Journal of
Chemical Engineering of Japan 13(2):147150.
25. Takahashi K, Arai K, Saito S (1982a). An
extended power correlation for anchor and
helical ribbon impellers. Journal of Chemical
Engineering of Japan 15(1):77-79.
26. Takahashi K, Sasaki M, Arai K, Saito S
(1982b). Effects of geometrical variables of
helical ribbon impellers on mixing of highly
viscous newtonian liquids. Journal of
Chemical Engineering of Japan 15(3):217224.
27. Takahashi K, Yokota T, Konno H (1988).
Mixing of pseudoplastic liquid in a vessel
equipped with a variety of helical ribbon
impellers. Journal of Chemical Engineering
of Japan 21(1):63-68.
28. Takahashi K, Iwaki M, Yokota T, Konno H
(1989). Circulation time for pseudoplastic
liquids in a vessel equipped with a variety of
428

Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011)

29.

30.

31.

Downloaded by [14.97.105.8] at 09:30 26 March 2016

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

helical ribbon impellers. Journal of Chemical

Engineering of Japan 22(4):413-418.
Tanguy PA, Lacroix R, Bertrand F, Choplin L,
Brito de la Fuente E (1992). Finite element
analysis of viscous mixing with a helical
ribbon-screw impeller. AICHE Journal
38(6):939-944.
Tanguy PA, Thibault F, Brito-de la Fuente E,
Espinosa-Solares T, Tecante A (1997).
Mixing performance induced by coaxial flat
blade-helical ribbon impellers rotating at
different speeds. Chemical Engineering
Science 52(11):1733-1741.
Thibault F, Tanguy PA (2002). Power-draw
analysis of a coaxial mixer with Newtonian
and non-Newtonian fluids in the laminar
regime. Chemical Engineering Science
57:3861-3872.
Tsui YY, Pan YF (2006). A pressurecorrection method for incompressible flows
using unstructured meshes. Numerical Heat
Transfer B 49:43-65.
Tsui YY, Chow JR, Hu YC (2006). Blade
angle effects on the flow in a tank agitated by
the pitched-blade turbine. Journal of Fluids
Engineering (ASME) 128:774-782.
Tsui YY, Hu YC (2008). Mixing flow
characteristics in a vessel agitated by the
screw impeller with a draught tube. Journal
of Fluids Engineering (ASME) 130:041103.
Wechsler K, Breuer M, Durst F (1999).
Steady and unsteady computations of
turbulent flows induced by a 4/45o pitchedblade impeller. Journal of Fluids Engineering
(ASME) 121:318-329.
Wu K-H, Lin B-J, Hung C-I (2008). Novel
design of centrifugal pump impellers using
generated machining method and CFD.
Engineering Applications of Computational
Fluid Mechanics 2(2):195-207.
Yedidiah S (2008). A study in the use of CFD
in the design of centrifugal pumps.
Engineering Applications of Computational
Fluid Mechanics 2(3):331-343.

429