ENGINEERING PRACTICE ‘High efficiency’ units outperform their pitched-blade counterparts in blending and heat transfer Julian B, Fasano and André Bakker Chemineernc. W. Roy Penney University of Arkansas erafineal nab impel A seiectectanerinti oe eS eeaauaarl poe it ha odd cross cee at me amen ms ea mere Wen iaeneceane Sl recat wea Pee siete eal en cine eka Coane Eero eu rceaes eaeia ie ee Fei blde tne le exer Bb iatnees eens ee el Sonca bn ca ave tor seal mene tec eeu Sings hs Fa tena ede: mete cea ants Relig demerit Senge haem cte gun) recente pct. Sle ual Tc higofceny spel ADVANCED IMPELLER GEOMETRY BOOSTS LIQUID AGITATION features a larger geometric pitch angle ef) at the hub than at the tip Results from recently con- ducted controlled experiments indicate the beneficial effeets of the high-off ciency impeller on blend time and heat- transfer coefficients in liquid-liquid mixing as well as solids suspension ‘This article focuses on liquid agitation, with discussions of solids suspension set aside for a forthcoming piece in this, series of articles on mixing [1-2) Selecting an impeller style A proper understanding of flow, head ‘and the effect of blade-tip vorties is important in selecting an impeller type for a particular application. Any device that moves fluid can produce some combination of head and flow for a given amount of power. 20H stayzstansiuvicz || The power not used in generating hhead or flow is dissipated. through FIGURE 2. The larger bladevtip vortex in | shoar or turbulent eddies. However, FIGURE 1 (top of page). Featuring a | a four-bladed pitched turbine (other larger geometric pitch at the hub than at | blades not the tip, @ highetficiency impeller en- | lowor offic thi disipation” of enegy ino nee Show above) account for ts : ow above aecouts or | sarily harmful bocause tere are api hhanees liquid mizing and heat ransfer | bladed high-oficiency impeller cations where the gencration of such 110 CHEMICAL ENGINEERINGIALGUST 1904 PLR ERRTAS TSE SPR REE BERGE GRUOPET ORR" Fee Sacre ge esateeddies or vortices is highly ble. For example, turbulent vor- play an important role during eon- of gases and liguds, mixing of ible liquids, and drawing-down floating solids. "Mauch ofthe energy loss from an im- erin turbulent flows is inthe form blade-tip vortex. Nearly half of the ‘of a pitched impeller blade is ed with this energy-dissipating compared with only small of the backside of a high-off- ency impeller blade (Figure 2). The ler vortex on. the high-efficiency accounts for lesser dissipation of ergy, and greater production of head flow instead, ‘An impeller produces laminar flow ghen tho impeller's Reynolds number pND*/p) is less than 1. In lami- ‘ow, no vortices are formed from de tips, even for the pitched-blade so the performance of the blade impeller is similar to {hat of its high-efficiency counterpart. ‘Transitional flow for most impellers is ‘eansidered to exist between Np, values ‘f 1 and 10,000. For Np, > 10,000, the ‘ow is fully turbulent: Recommended impeller styles for transitional and tur- balent flows are listed in Table 1. Selection ofthe correct impeller style is very important as is the number of Impellers to be used. That's because an impeller, even a high-fficieney type, ‘eannot provide adequate mixing action ‘beyond a certain liquid level, This max- mom liquid level is a function of Reynolds number. Generally, for diff ent ranges of Nz, the ratio of liquid level to tank diameter (ZiT) is used in deciding whether to use single- or dual- Impeller agitators (Table 2) Estimate power requirements Agitator vendors can typically supply tho user with the experimentally deter- ined power number (N,), which is a function ofmpeller type, geometry and Np. This power number for four biied pitched impeller and three- bladed high-efficiency impeller (desig- nated HE-8) can be obtained from Figure 3, The impeller power roquire- tment can be calelated (3) fom jppN'D® ® ‘This equation can also be rearranged Applications of Impellers Impolier style Preferred Npetange Thuee-bladed, high: ficiency Fr = ™ Draw-down of surface solids or gas + Coarse immiscible liquid-iquid ana ‘goF-liauid dispersions * Local mixing ‘tank botiom + Tronstionel- 10 logs ming or 18:50) + Agitation during vessel pump-out + intense gos-iquid mixing + Fine dispersion of immiscible liquids + Fast semi-batch reactions ‘TABLE 4. A numberof factors, including the prevalent flow regime, come into play in dciding the right impeller styl to determine impeller diamoter when it is desired to load an agitator impeller to agiven power level. The torque de- livered to the fluid by a single impeller can be computed from the impeller speed and power draw as follows: P__NgpN?? a Wy @ Quantifying agitation intensity Prior to a pioneering attempt to quan- tify agitation intensities by Hicks and his coworkers [d), it was customary to broadly rate the degree of agitation in- tensity in a mixing vessel as “mild,” “medium” or “violent.” No quantitative technique was available to consistently define these agitation intensities, and therefore, there was no way to insure that such intensities could be repli- cated on other batch sizes or for other ‘types of mixing applications. Hicks (41 introduced a relative mea- sure for assessing. agitation intensity in pitehed-blade impellers by use of a scale of agitation.” Symbolized by Sy hore, this scale of agitation is based on fa characteristic velocity, v®, which is determined as follows: @ Q, is determined from the pumping number, N,,in Figure 4. Ranging from 1 to 10, Sy'is a linear function of the characteristic velocity. Accordingly, a Sq.value of 1 represents a low level, ‘and 10 a high level of agitation inten sity. S, is readily caleulated from the following equation: S,=92.80° 6 ‘This 1-t-10 range of agitation inten- sity accounts for about 95%, or more, of all turbine-agitator applications, mak- ingitsuitablefora wide range of process ‘operations, Gates and his colleagues [5] provideguidelineson hoy torelateS, to specific process applications. ‘The primary pumping capacity of an ‘impeller is computed from the pumping number, the rotational speed and the impeller diameter: Q=N NDP 7 CHEMICAL ENGINEERINGIAUGUST 1908114Power number for impellers as a function of D/T 100 1,000 5 1,000 = 10,000) ya fe > 10,000 2a | 12 [a ‘orale inpllrs 2620.4 er Ferdilingelers 3 2 See 8 Pha, Sondand = ‘TABLE 2, The maximum allowed ZIT values vary, depending on Whether the agitators have single or dual impellers om-04 —o7=05 ‘The characteristic velocity can be ex- | C.,. The uniformity usually increases pressed ai ‘according to an exponential function: gah) | Mo=te ao i where &,, is the mixing-rate constant. ‘his characteristic velocity seals | The aboe equation can be rearranged swometecaly and bosoms to eld an equation for de blend time wre NIND | required to achieve a certain dezree of “ ‘niin ‘Therefore, during geometric sealeup, the characteristic velocity can be held constant by holding ND eonstant Highofceney impéllrs Figure 1) of diferent sizes vary in their perfr- ||__ Mixing-ate constants Inance with respect to agitation inten: | fmpatretve [a | sity. One can use the pumping num bers from Figure 4 to estimate S, for | | Sebladediaieg | 106 | 217 other soch unite Forbid tt 230 For most turbine applications, re alacnga ptchol bade opel wiha| | Neameaedag high-fceney uni results in a signif fant provement inthe degree of agi || uwoomaged To | tation intensity. For example, a 1.5.4W | LMbetiteney itator operating at a shaft speed of | TABLE 3 (above). The mixing-rate con- seat: gn i rel | Sa erty ot a woos square-bateh (Z/7'= 1) vessel equipped | "ae ” 12.000) Sith a 1558an-diahigheticiency im- | TABLE 4 eat) tnd ie or ‘ni an ne ee Lesher Se cae ee te 1 | ‘bine is about 80% longer than that with a as. viscosity tid. In contrast, a | Righatiincy pater Lipton. pitehel-blade impeller i the same bh vessel draws the same power to produce Sof just above 2. Int) iP ay ———— forcase Study? Blending for material uniformity. Ts tae tegatana oes Tage otanloealy chert natal ercrcuntie ora tbemee: berber pdrientieting Coan The eit o sing feed [00 a [200% Here AC is the deviation from the av- erage tank concentration, denoted by 442 CHENICAL ENGINEERINGAUGUST 1094 FIGURES. When called pontoloadanag- lator impeller to a given power level, one canuse Equation 2to calculate the required siameter of the impeller from the power number For certain applications, such as acid-hase neutralizations, it is desir- able to predict the maximum and mini ‘mum eoneentrations at some time t. ‘The following equations are obtained from rearrangements of the definition of the degree of mixing uniformity, and can be used to estimate the maximum. ‘and minimum concentrations at a spec- Coin Cronlt) a where y(t) and Cy) are the mini- mum and” maximum concentrations anywhere in the tank at time . C, and ._are the initial and final concentra- tion of the added material in the bulk ‘uid, respectively. C, refers othe eon- centration ofthe material added ‘The dimensionless mixing-rate ean: stant, Nin standard baffled tanks, is a function of impeller Reynolds num- ber (g,) and geometry. When Np, > 10,000, f./N is ona function of geom- etry, and'is independent of Np For fully turbulent conditions in standard baffled tanks, F,, can be determined ex perimentally from NV, D, Tand Z using the following relationship: kan TET" as ‘The constants a and b are provided in Table 3, as a funetion of impeller style in the turbulent range (py $10,000) Unless otherwise specified, blend times generally refer to the time re- quired to achieve 99% uniformity and