The mixing of fluids

What do the eruption of Krakatau, the manufacture of puff pastry and the brightness of stars have in common Each involves some aspect of mixing. Mixing also plays a critical role in modern technology. Chemical engineers rely on mixing to ensure that substances react properly, to produce polymer blends that exhibit unique properties and to disperse drag-reducing agents in pipelines. Yet in spite of its of its ubiquity in nature and industry, mixing is only imperfectly under-stood. Indeed, investigators cannot even settle on a common terminology: mixing is often referred to as stirring by oceanographers and geophysicists, as blending by polymer engineers and as agitation by process engineers. Regardless of what the process is called, there is little doubt that it is exceedingly complex and is found in a great variety of systems. In constructing a theory of fluid mixing, for example, one has to take into account fluids that can be miscible or partially miscible and reactive or inert, and flows that are slow and orderly or very fast and turbulent. It is therefore not surprising that no single theory can explain all aspect of mixing in fluids and that straightforward computations usually fail to capture all the importantmore » details. Still, both physical experiments and computer simulations can provide insight into the mixing process. Over the past several years the authors and his colleague have taken both approaches in an effort to increase understanding of various aspect of the process-particularly of mixing involving slow flows and viscous fluids such as oils.« less