Validation of the ORCA CFD Software Using SMX and Kenics Static Mixer Elements

transfer applications involving viscous fluids are used in a variety of products within the pharmaceutical, chemical, personal product, and food industries. Static mixers or inline mixers are often used in series, parallel, or other configurations within piping networks. Completing extensive experimental work on these complete systems is nearly impossible. Optimization of these processes becomes critical as margins lower; product consistency and product quality are essential. Many food, pharmaceutical and health products industries use batch processes in which the same equipment is utilized for a variety of products. Within these industries, change over time must be reduced by minimizing the residence time of remaining products. In the pharmaceutical industry it is crucial that products are consistent from batch to batch, as slight impurities can result in failure to comply with FDA testing. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) offers an alternative technique to traditional experimental methods for accelerating equipment design and optimization while gaining additional fundamental understanding of mixing processes. The ability to analyse potential problem areas and test various solutions efficiently presents a myriad of beneficial possibilities. Once validated, CFD can be utilized for design purposes. Before CFD can be used confidently, the results must be validated against experimental values and from such validation, inline mixer systems can be designed with confidence. The primary benefit of CFD models lies within their capacity for testing and optimizing numerous scenarios quickly compared to designing and building an experimental/laboratory model. The pressure drop and mixing characteristics were computa-tionally determined using the ORCA CFD package and the results were between compared two types of static mixers: the Koch-Glitsch SMX static mixer and the Chemineer ® Kenics mixer. The ORCA CFD package provides accurate solutions in a timely manner utilizing a novel solution technique in the area of mixing fluid dynamics. The results attained form ORCA are validated against two detailed experimental studies using the SMX mixer and Kenics mixer. The comparison shows excellent agreement between the CFD and the experimental data. ORCA uses Galerkin Least-Squares finite element technology , a novel approach to computer aided modeling and optimizing mixing processes. Computer aided mixing, model-ing, and analysis involves Lagrangian and Eulerian analysis for relative fluid stretching, and energy dissipation concepts for laminar and turbulent flows. High quality, conservative, accurate, fluid velocity, and continuity solutions are required for determining mixing quality. The ORCA CFD package, based on a finite element formulation , solves the incompressible Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes …