07-04-2017

Power required for mixing Power required for mixing

The electrical power required for driving the motor connected to the Power requirement calculated does not include the power consumed by
agitator/impeller.
Gear box assembly
Power is required by the impeller blades to overcome the viscous forces of
Stuffing box, O-rings or mechanical seals- assembled to agitator shaft
the broth.
Friction in the motor
Power required is a function of
Friction in the assembly
Viscosity of fluid
Density of fluid Other mechanical losses
Presence of suspended solids etc
Actual power required by the motor connected to the agitator is more
Speed of the agitator
Type and nature of the impeller than that calculated.
Orientation of vanes/blades of the impeller. Power requirement varies for gassed and ungassed systems.

1 2

tm is the mixing time

based on a 10%
deviation from final
conditions,and Ni is
rotational speed of the Variation of mixing time with Reynolds
stirrer. Nitm represents number for a six-blade Rushton turbine
in a baffled tank.
the number of stirrer
rotations required to
For a single-phase liquid in a stirred tank with several homogenise the liquid.
baffles and small impeller, there is an approximate
relationship between mixing time and circulation time

3 4

1
 07-04-2017

Power requirement Ungassed Newtonian

Fluids
However, as Reynolds number is increased above Power requirement is a function of fluid properties and agitator
about 5x103, Nitm approaches a constant value which speed.
persists at high Re i.

For Rushton turbines, this constant value can be

estimated using the following relationship.

where Vis liquid volume and Di is impeller diameter.

Thus, Nitm at high Reynolds number depends only on
the size of the tank and stirrer. The relationship between power number and impeller Reynolds
number was plotted for variety of impellers.
5 6

Standard Turbine Design

Impeller Reynolds Number H: depth of liquid
Dt: tank diameter
Da: impeller diameter
L: blade length
W: impeller width
J: width of baffle
E: clearance

Mixing time (tm) : It is the time required to achieve a

given degree of homogeneity starting from the
completely segregated state.
Can be measured by injecting a tracer into the vessel
and following its concentration at a fixed point in the
tank. 7

2
 07-04-2017

S1=Da/Dt

Power calculation S2 = E/Dt

For Unbaffled tanks:
S3 = L/Da
S4=W/Da
S5 = J/Dt
S6 = H/Dt

Graph Line a b
Six bladed turbine D 1.0 40.0
Three blade propeller B 1.7 18.0

Problems for baffled and un baffled vessels Power calculation at low and high Reynolds number

3
 07-04-2017

Power calculation at low and high Reynolds number

Power No Vs Impeller Reynolds No

14

Power requirement Ungassed

non- Newtonian Fluids
Power requirement (Contd)
Difficult to estimate the power requirement as it is not
possible to quantify the term viscosity.
is apparent viscosity
Viscosity changes with shear rate. Reynolds number is
Most non-Newtonian fluids are highly viscous, hence they
seldom reach turbulent zone.

Impeller Reynolds number is redefined by replacing viscosity Same graph is used to evaluate the power
term by apparent viscosity. number once impeller reynolds number is
obtained using the above equation.
15 16

4

where n is the flow behaviour index and K is the consistency
index.
A problem with application of above equation is evaluation of
shear strain. For stirred tanks, an approximate relation for
pseudoplastic fluids is often used:
17
Power requirement (Contd)
Power required for gassed systems
-where Pg is power consumption with sparging, P0 is
power consumption without sparging,
-Fg is volumetric gas flow rate,
-Ni is stirrer speed,
-V is liquid volume,
-Di is impeller diameter,
-g is gravitational acceleration, and
-W i is impeller blade width.
With sparging, the power consumed could be reduced to as
little as half the ungassed value, depending on gas flow rate19
07-04-2017
Power requirement gassed Systems
Hydrodynamics in the vicinity of gas spargers changes in case
of gassed systems.
The density of the fluid changes near the sparger and also
near the impeller blades.
The power required in this case is always less than that
required for the ungassed systems
18
Effect of Rheological Properties on Mixing
For effective mixing there must be turbulent conditions in the mixing
vessel.
For a baffled tank with turbine impeller, once Rei falls below about
5x103 turbulence is damped and mixing time increases significantly.
Accordingly, non-turbulent conditions and poor mixing are likely to
occur during agitation of highly viscous fluids.
Increasing the impeller speed is an obvious solution but, this requires
considerable increase in power consumption and therefore may not
be feasible.
Hence larger diameter impeller are recommended and alternative
design like helical impellers and gate- and paddle-anchors mounted
with small clearance between the impeller and tank wall.
20