Hydrodynamic and mixing characterization of a novel static mixer geometry: a numerical study

作者：W. Abou-Hweij, F. Azizi · 发表于：Chemical Engineering Communications · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1080/00986445.2025.2484750 · 被引用次数：1

Abstract This study proposes two novel static mixer geometries that build on the dispersive capabilities of screen-type static mixers (STSMs) but enhance their distributive mixing performance. This is accomplished by means of rectangular inserts placed downstream of each woven mesh. Such a geometry ensures splitting the flow as well as generating additional vortices and flow perturbations necessary to promote distributive mixing. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic model was used to investigate the hydrodynamic and mixing performance of two variants of the new mixer under turbulent flow conditions, where the pipe Reynolds number was varied between 5000 and 30,000. The numerical model was validated experimentally by means of pressure drop data where a maximum relative error of ± 9.6% was measured. Compared to an empty pipe and a conventional STSM, the results showed that the novel mixers could enhance both radial/distributive and dispersive mixing at low and high turbulence levels. These results were based on a careful analysis of both intensity of segregation as well as the extensional efficiency. This study recommends one of these variants as an alternative mixer to a screen mixer due to its superior mixing performance while maintaining acceptable pressure drop levels. The distributive mixing was measured using the coefficient of variation where homogeneity levels lower than 5% were attained, while simultaneously 10.3% of the mixer volume attained extensional eff...