Lagrangian "Mixing Analysis" of Heat Transfer: A New Way for Thermal Optimisation (11054)

Project nummer: 11054

Omschrijving van het onderzoek

Heat and mass transfer under laminar flow conditions are key to a wide variety of industrial fluid systems of size extending from microns to meters. Examples range from the "classical" mixing and thermal processing of polymers via compact heat exchangers for pharmaceutical applications down to micro-reactors in biotechnology. Many of these applications, notwithstanding their great diversity, operate by the same "static mixing" working principle: a continuous throughflow that is "stirred" in transverse direction via fixed internal elements in order to accomplish efficient heat and mass transfer.
A paradigm shift in thermofluids engineering is imperative for further technological advancement of the important class of staticmixing-based equipment. Future engineering methods must namely, instead of the strong empirical nature of today's approaches, explicitly rely on profound insight into fundamental transport mechanisms so as to facilitate this technological progress. The proposed study seeks to tackle this challenge through in-depth thermal analysis of a representative configuration, the Kenics mixer, by a simple yet revolutionary new approach towards heat transfer, namely its representation as the "motion" of a "virtual fluid," and translation of insight thus gained into new engineering methodologies. This fundamental change in thermal modelling enables thermal analysis in terms of the "thermal trajectories" (thermal counterpart to fluid trajectories) by well-established -- and very successful -- methods from mixing studies. This "Lagrangian mixing analysis of heat transfer" offers promising new thermofluids-engineering capabilities beyond those of conventional Eulerian approaches based on e.g. temperature fields.

The study concentrates on two issues of great practical relevance that remain ill-understood so far: (i) the role of mixing in heattransfer enhancement; (ii) the role of wall properties (geometry and material) in heat-transfer enhancement. These issues are to be addressed by numerical and experimental analyses of the Kenics mixer.

Gebruikers

Five companies are involved in this project.

Projectleider

Dr. ir. M.F.M. Speetjens
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
Faculteit Werktuigbouwkunde
Werktuigkundige Energie- en Procestechnologie
Postbus 513
5600 MB EINDHOVEN

Status van het project

Startdatum:	15-11-2010
Einddatum:	14-01-2014

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