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CACE-4163; No. of Pages 10
CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about
the RANS simulations
M. Coroneo, G. Montante ∗ , A. Paglianti, F. Magelli
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica, Mineraria e delle Tecnologie Ambientali, Università di Bologna, Via Terracini 28, 40131 Bologna, Italy
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This work is aimed at verifying the effect of numerical issues on the RANS-based predictions of single
Received 22 January 2010 phase stirred tanks. In particular, the effect of grid size and discretization schemes on global parameters,
Received in revised form 20 October 2010 mean velocity, turbulent dissipation rate and homogenization is considered. Although contradictory
Accepted 10 December 2010
results have been reported so far on the capability of RANS methods in fluid mixing, the most widely
Available online xxx
accepted conclusion is that adequate values are generally to be expected for the predicted mean flow
quantities, while much less confidence must be put on the calculated turbulent quantities and related
Keywords:
phenomena. The results obtained in this work partially revise this last statement and demonstrate that
Mixing
Turbulence
firm conclusions on the limits of RANS simulations can be drawn only after careful verification of numer-
Homogenization ical uncertainties. The simulation results are discussed and compared to the literature experimental data
PLIF and to original passive tracer homogenization curves determined with planar laser induced fluorescence.
CFD
Numerical error © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0098-1354/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
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& Micale, 1998; Montante, Lee, Brucato, & Yianneskis, 2001; Ng,
Nomenclature Fentiman, Lee, & Yianneskis, 1998; Ranade, Tayalia, & Krishnan,
2002).
Notation
The present availability of more powerful and affordable com-
c concentration, kg m−3
putational resources relative to few years ago allows us to perform
CoV coefficient of variation, dimensionless
systematic, much stringent evaluation of the numerical errors with
Dm molecular diffusivity, m2 s−1
respect to the modelling approximations. In this work, attention is
k turbulent kinetic energy, m2 s−2
focused on the contribution of numerical issues to the accuracy of
Npix number of pixels
the most widespread RANS simulation method for stirred vessels,
NG pixel grey level
namely that based on the k–ε model closure and standard wall func-
Np power number, dimensionless
tions for the treatment of the near wall region. Attention is focused
NQ pumping number, dimensionless
on local and global dissipation rate, local turbulent kinetic energy,
r, z, cylindrical coordinate
impeller pumping capacity, and the homogenization process of a
t time, s
scalar tracer. For validation, comparison of the computed results
U velocity vector, m s−1
with original experimental data is provided for the last aspect, with
V radial velocity, m s−1
the literature data for the other parameters, where available. The
Vtip impeller tip speed, m s−1
analysis of the results explains most of the discrepancies obtained
X number of pixel along x
by different authors.
x, y Cartesian coordinate
Y number of pixel along y
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
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where Npix is the overall number of pixels, X and Y are the number of
pixels along the radial and axial direction, respectively, c is the pixel
level concentration and c̄ is the average pixel level concentration.
In order to obtain a reliable estimate of the time series of the 63 36 96
coefficient of variation up to the condition of almost full homog-
enization, which corresponds to a CoV value of about 0.01, 4 ml
of aqueous tracer solution (204 mg/l of Rhodamine 6G in water),
were injected into the stirred tank. For these conditions, the ini-
tial Rhodamine 6G concentration was out of the linearity range of
the calibration curve and, therefore, the relevant images had to be
discarded, thus loosing information during the first second after
injection. Also, for CoV equal to about 0.01, the maximum value
of the local concentration is about 0.4 mg/l and the measurement
accuracy decreases. 126 72 192
3. RANS simulations
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
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Np [-]
process is expected to be small with respect to the turbulent dif-
fusion; this last was modelled by the ratio between the turbulent
3.0
viscosity and the turbulent Schmidt number (Montante, Moštěk,
Jahoda, & Magelli, 2005). For this last parameter, the commonly
suggested value of 0.7 (e.g. Hartmann et al., 2006) has been adopted. 2.0 torque (on steady walls)
In all cases, the second order upwind discretization scheme was torque (on moving walls)
dissipation
adopted for the solution of Eq. (3). The standard time step for
1.0
the solution was equal to 2.08 × 10−3 s, that covers the azimuthal st nd
1 order 2 order quick
extent of one cell in the coarser grid (i.e. 2/96), and is much smaller discretization scheme
than the experimental data acquisition rate (8 Hz). The standard
settings for the time step size and the number of internal iterations Fig. 1. Effect of discretization scheme on the power number prediction. Grid 1: ()
for each time step were selected after a sensitivity study, in which Np,torque on steady walls; () Np,torque on moving walls; (䊉) Np,ε .
the independency of the results with respect to simulation runs
with smaller time steps and a bigger number of internal iterations
was found. stress distribution on the steady walls (baffles and tank) or on the
Two different sets of initial and boundary conditions were moving surfaces (impeller and shaft); in the other case, the inte-
adopted for the tracer injection: one that mimics the non- gral of the turbulent dissipation rate over the entire vessel volume
instantaneous, actual injection of the PLIF experiments as closely was adopted. In the past, it has often been observed that the two
as possible and another that is simplified and less computationally methods lead to different Np values, the second (Np,ε , based on ε)
demanding with respect to the former. In the more realistic and being usually lower than the former (Np,torque , based on torque)
computationally intensive case, a velocity inlet boundary condi- due to underestimation of the turbulent quantities associated to
tion was imposed at the upper surface of the injection tube and the the RANS k–ε method (Middleton & Smith, 2004; Sommerfeld &
tracer injection time interval was explicitly simulated. Whereas, Decker, 2004). The results obtained with the three discretization
in the simplified approach the tracer was released instantaneously schemes and Grid 1, that is the coarser grid, are summarised in
in the region between the injection tube and the impeller, i.e. the Fig. 1, where a line giving the value computed following Rutherford
volume fraction of the tracer was fixed to 1 in a number of compu- et al. (1996) is also shown. The results confirm the wide dis-
tational cells (tracer plume) whose total volume was equal to the crepancy of Np evaluation with the two methods, at least for the
experimental volume. In order to assess whether the selection of selected domain discretization: a realistic power number, close to
the initial position and form of the plume affected the results in any the “classic” value of 5, results only when considering the power
critical way, five different initial conditions for the instantaneous consumption obtained from the torque transferred from the mov-
injection were considered, namely: a reference initial condition ing walls to the fluid or from the fluid to the steady walls, while a
(Case 1) corresponding to a cylinder of tracer in which the initial, much lower value is obtained with the second method. As expected,
instantaneous velocity was equal to 0.057 m s−1 (i.e. equal to the the first order discretization scheme is significantly less accurate
experimental injection velocity, irrespective of the local flow field than the other two: it leads to more severe underestimation of the
in the absence of the injection); a shorter cylinder, obtained by halv- volumetric ε integral and it does not even allow to reach an appro-
ing the height of the injected volume (Case 2); an eccentric position, priate balance between the torque on steady and moving walls.
obtained by placing the cylinder base center 0.0028 m apart from The other two discretization schemes provide the same results.
the center of the tube inlet surface (Case 3); a cylinder of the same Therefore, in the subsequent simulations the second order upwind
shape as Case 3 and doubled velocity (Case 4); an eccentric cylinder, discretization for the convective terms has been adopted, since
with a base center placed 0.0035 m apart from the center of the tube apparently the higher order QUICK scheme does not improve the
inlet, with an additional radial velocity component of 0.028 m s−1 results further. The importance of an appropriate choice of the dis-
(Case 5). cretization scheme in the RANS simulations of turbulent stirred
In any case, the tube was explicitly included in the computa- tanks was already observed by Aubin et al. (2004) and by Deglon
tional domain and the injection was assumed to take place after and Meyer (2006).
the attainment of a fully developed velocity field, as in the experi- The effect of the spatial discretization on the predicted power
ments, which means adopting the solution of the flow equations as consumption is apparent from the results obtained with the four
the initial condition for the solution of the scalar transport equation. grids shown in Fig. 2. As can be observed, the two Np values are
closer, the finer the grid is, thus showing that the severe Np,ε under-
estimation almost disappears if the computational grid density is
4. Results more than doubled with respect to the usually adopted resolution.
Although the above quoted discrepancy between the two Np val-
4.1. Turbulent flow field and global parameters ues does not vanish entirely even with the finest grid, the effect
of the spatial discretization on this important variable cannot be
The verification of the numerical uncertainties of the simula- disregarded when evaluating the k–ε model prediction capability.
tions was started with the analysis of the predicted power number, A quantitative evaluation of the predicted Np is better given by
Np , that is one of the most important and representative global the relative difference between Np,ε and Np,torque normalized with
dimensionless parameters for a stirred vessel. For all the sim- Np,torque shown in Fig. 3. Appropriate selection of the discretization
ulations, the power consumption has been calculated from the scheme and of spatial resolution leads to a decrease in the differ-
predicted variables in two ways: in one case, it was estimated ence between the two calculated Np values from very high values
from the overall torque derived from the pressure and tangential down to 7%. So far, similar reasonable RANS predictions of the global
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
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1.0
0.8
NQ [-]
0.6
2° order
1° order
0.4
0 1 2 3 4 5
grid
Fig. 4. Effect of grid density and discretization scheme on the flow number predic-
Fig. 2. Effect of grid size on the power number prediction (2nd order upwind). Open
tions.
symbols: Np,torque on steady walls; solid symbols: Np,ε .
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
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10.00
PLIF data
Injection (grid 1)
CoV [-]
0.10
0.01
0.00
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
t [s]
Fig. 6. Comparison of CoV curves obtained with two different grid densities (2nd
order upwind scheme) and the corresponding experimental data obtained by the
PLIF technique.
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007
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0.5
case 1
case 2
case 3
case 4
0.4
0.3
CoV [-]
0.2
0.1
0.0
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
t [s]
Fig. 9. Temporal evolution of the coefficient of variation obtained from explicit sim-
Fig. 7. Temporal evolution of the coefficient of variation for various initial conditions ulation of the injection step extent or assuming it as instantaneous (fixed tracer
of the rhodamine solution inlet. Grid 1 – Case 1: reference shape and velocity; Case concentration and velocity as initial condition). The shadowed curve is equal to the
2: shorter and thicker shape, same velocity; Case 3: eccentric position, same shape dotted curve, but the time scale is translated of
T = 0.375 s, that is the injection
and velocity; Case 4: same shape, doubled velocity. length.
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
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Fig. 10. Instantaneous experimental (left) and computed (right) maps of tracer concentration: (a) t = 0.0 s; (b) t = 1.0 s; (c) t = 1.6 s. CFD results obtained with Grid 2 and
simplified tracer feed (Case 1).
Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
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Please cite this article in press as: Coroneo, M., et al. CFD prediction of fluid flow and mixing in stirred tanks: Numerical issues about the RANS
simulations. Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011), doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.12.007