Computational fluid dynamics modelling of a static mixer

Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, the data from physical experiments are used to quantify the mixing efficiency of a static mixer injected with two coloured streams of fluid. Two image analysis techniques are investigated - counting striations and a modified mixing index approach based on creating a histogram of greyscale values from the digitized image. The histogram approach is identified as the more promising and establishes the method for a future, more detailed study Data from a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the mixer were analysed using the modified mixing index approach. Comparison to experimental results suggests that the bulk behaviour of the static mixer can be adequately captured by the deterministic CFD approach, despite the chaotic nature of the original mixing process.