Prediction of the performance of continuous mixers for particulate solids using residence time distributions: Part II. Experimental

Abstract In an earlier paper a method was proposed to predict the performance of a continuous mixer for non-segregating particulate solids, using the residence time distribution for the mixer. This paper reports experiments to test these predictions for a drum mixer. The results show satisfactory agreement between predicted and measured performances, provided the tracer material used in the residence time tests does not show any appreciable segregation when mixed with the base material. It is confirmed that the performance of the mixer is independent of changes in the variance of composition fluctuations in the input stream but depends heavily on its serial correlation coefficient.