An Introduction to a Chaotic Mixer with Three Rotational Arc-Shaped Blades

The motivation of this study is to introduce a novel chaotic mixer comprising three arcs which are rotating at a constant speed. In spite of the constant speed protocol, streamlines are time-dependent which is the requisite of chaotic flow. The streamlines show the continuous displacement of hyperbolic stagnation points and parabolic points which leads to better mixing condition for highly viscous fluids. In order to demonstrate chaotic behavior, numerical simulations are carried out using ANSYS Fluent software. The fourth order Runge-Kutta method was employed for the solution of particle motions in order to track the fluid particles and to investigate their sensitivities to the initial positions. Based on the results, the Lyapunov exponent was calculated. The results indicate that Lyapunov exponent increases promptly in less than 60 seconds after the initiation of mixing process which shows the reduction of time for reaching homogenous mixture. Furthermore, the numerical results prove chaotic behavior of flow in the proposed mixer and show its potential for utilization in the wide range of industrial processes in which laminar flow is required.

Keywords:

Mixing , Chaotic Mixer , Lyapunov Exponent , Parabolic Point , Hyperbolic Points