AGITATION

Introduction to Principles and Practice

Course Contents
• Agitation
• Flow patterns
• Types of Impellers
• Power Calculation
• Mixing
• Degree of Mixing
• Scale-up of Agitator Design

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Agitation
-refers to the induced motion of a material in a
specified way, usually in a circulatory pattern
inside some sort of container.

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Examples of Processes that uses
Agitation
• Blending of two miscible liquids
• Dissolving solids in liquids
• Dispersing a gas in a liquid as fine bubbles,
such as oxygen in a suspension of
microorganisms for waste-treatment
• Suspension of fine solid particle, such as
metallic pigments in paint
• Agitation of a fluid to eliminate temperature
gradients
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Agitation Equipment
• Cylindrical vessel with a vertical axis
• Vessel bottom is rounded
• Liquid depth is approximately equal to the
diameter of the tank
• An impeller is mounted on an overhung shaft.
Shaft is driven by a motor
• The impeller creates a flow pattern in the
system, causing the liquid to circulate through
the vessel and return eventually to the
impeller

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Impellers
• Divided into two classes:
– Axial-flow impellers
generate currents parallel with the axis of
impeller
– Radial-flow impellers
generate currents in a tangential or radial
direction.
• Three main types of impellers:
– Propellers
– Paddles
– Turbines

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Propellers
• Axial flow high speed impeller, for liquids of
low viscosity
• Small impellers turn at full motor speed
• Pitch of propeller: a propeller with a pitch of
1.0 is said to have square pitch
• Rarely exceed 18” in diameter regardless of
the size of the vessel
• In a deep tank two or more propellers may
be mounted on the same shaft

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Propellers

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Paddles
• Flat paddle turning on a vertical shaft
• Two-bladed and four-bladed paddles are
common
• Sometimes the blades are pitched; more
often they are vertical
• Push the liquid radially and tangentially with
almost no vertical motion
• In deep tanks several paddles are mounted
one above the other on the same shaft
-contd..

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Paddles
• In some designs blades conform to the
shape of the vessel so that they scrape the
surface or pass over with close clearance
– Eg. Anchor agitators
• Anchor agitators are useful for preventing
deposits on a heat transfer surface
• Industrial paddle agitators turn at speed
between 20 and 150 rpm
• Total length of impeller is 50-80% of the ID
of vessel
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Paddles

Four bladed
Anchor type

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Turbines
• Multi-bladed paddle agitators with short
blades, turning at high speeds
• Blades may be straight, or curved, pitched or
vertical
• Impellers may be open, semi-enclosed, or
shrouded
• Dia of impeller is smaller than with paddles,
ranging from 30 to 50% of vessel dia
• Effective over a wide range of viscosities

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Turbines

Open straight-blade
turbine Open curved blade
turbine

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Selection of Impellers
• In the direction of viscosity increase
Propeller  Turbine  Paddle  Anchor 
Helical ribbon  Helical screw

Speed of impeller decreases in the above

order.
• Propellers: up to 10,000 cP;
Turbines: up to 15,000 cP;
Anchors: upto 100,000 cP

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Flow patterns
• Depends on the type of impeller,
characteristics of the fluid, size and
proportions of tank, baffles and agitator
• Velocity of fluid has three components, and
the overall flow pattern in the tank depends
on the variations in these velocity
components from point to point
• Three velocity components:
– Radial, longitudinal, and rotational or tangential
-contd..
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Flow patterns
• Radial component acts in a direction
perpendicular to the shaft of the impeller
• Longitudinal component acts in a direction
parallel with the shaft
• Tangential or rotational component acts in a
direction tangent to a circular path around
the shaft
• The radial and longitudinal components are
useful and provide the flow necessary for the
mixing action
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Vortex formation
• When the shaft is vertical and centrally
located in the tank, the tangential
component is generally disadvantageous
• The tangential flow follows a circular path
around the shaft, and creates a vortex at the
surface of the liquid
• At high impeller speeds the vortex may be
so deep that it reaches the impeller, and gas
from above the liquid is drawn down into the
charge
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Vortex formation and Swirling

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Prevention of Swirling

• Off-centered mounting of impeller

• Mounting agitator with inclination to
the vertical axis
• Installing baffles
– Baffles are not generally required with
high viscosity liquids where vortexing is
not a problem
• Using draft tubes
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Agitator Flow patterns

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Degree of Agitation
• Agitator tip-speed is
commonly used as a
measure of degree
of agitation Low 500-650 fpm
• Tip-speed =  D n
• Expressed in Medium 650-800 fpm
feet/min (fpm)
High 800-1100 fpm

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Std Speed of Impeller Gear ratio
speed, rpm
Impellers
284 5:1
• Motor speed: 190 7.5:1
1420-1450 rpm for 142 10:1
50Hz, AC
100 15:1
• Worm gear
71 20:1
reducers with
ratio: 5:1 to 60:1 57 25:1
48 30:1
37 40:1
30 50:1
25 60:1 22
Power consumption
• Power required to rotate a given
impeller depends on:
– important measurements of tank and
impeller
– viscosity  and the density  of the liquid
– speed of agitator
– acceleration of gravity g
• Empirical correlations of power with the
above variables by dimensional analysis
are available.
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Power correlation
• Power P is a function of the variables:

• By dimensional analysis:

• Taking account of shape factors:

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Dimensionless Groups
• Power number

• Reynolds number

• Froude number

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Power Correlations

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Calculation of power consumption
• From the definition of NP

• At low Reynolds number

• At high Reynolds number

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Mixing
• Mixing refers to the random
distribution, into and through one
another, of two or more initially
separate phases
• A single homogenous material, such as
a tank full of cold water can be
agitated, but it can not be mixed until
some other material is added to it

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Factors enhancing mixing
• Low interfacial tension that inhibits the
formation of interfaces

• Similar densities that prevent separation by

stratification induced by gravity and
centrifugal fields

• Low viscosities that promote fluidity and the

penetration of one fluid element into
another.

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Uniformity of Mixing - Measuring
By Various kinds of tracer techniques:
• A dye is introduced and the time for attainment of
uniform color is noted
• A concentrated salt solution is added as tracer and
the measured electrical conductivity tells when the
composition is uniform
• The residence time distribution is measured by
monitoring the outlet concentration of an inert tracer.
The shape of response curve is compared with that
of a ideally mixed tank

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Degree of Mixing - Quantification
• Standard Deviation:

where
xm (with an over-bar) is the mean fractional concentration
xi = the fractional concentration of the component in the i-th
sample
N = the number of samples taken

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Mixing Index

where

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How long to Mix
• Mixing index decrease with time according to

where k is the mixing rate constant; and tm is the mixing time

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Scale-up of Agitator Design
• When a small unit is built before the larger or
production unit – pilot plant
• When a small unit is built after the production
unit - model
• Scale-up requires three types of similarity
between pilot-plot unit and full-scale unit:
– Geometric similarity
– Kinematic similarity
– Dynamic similarity

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Geometric similarity
• Refers to linear dimensions
• Two vessels of different sizes are
geometrically similar if the ratios of the
corresponding dimensions on the two
scales are the same
• If photographs of two vessels are
completely super-impossible, they are
geometrically similar

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Kinematic Similarity

• refers to motion

• requires geometric similarity and the

same ratio of velocities for the
corresponding positions in the vessels

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Dynamic Similarity
• concerns forces

• requires all force ratios for

corresponding positions to be equal in
kinematically similar vessels

• the significant dimensionless

parameters must be equal for model
and prototype
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Example of Scale-up

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Necessary conditions for Effective
Scale-up
• First the regime must be a relatively
pure one. Dynamic similarity should
depend chiefly upon a single
dimensionless group that represents the
ratio of applied to the opposing forces

• Second, the regime should not change

as vessel size goes from small to the
larger scale.
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References
• McCabe & Smith, Unit Operations of
Chemical Engineering, McGraw Hill
• Treybal, Mass Transfer Operations,
McGraw Hill
• Perry, Chemical Engineers Handbook,
McGraw Hill
• http://www.erpt.org/014Q/youa-00.htm
• http://www.ces.clemson.edu/chemeng/
undergraduate/uolab/theoryof.htm
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Thank You