Mixer Tank

Mixer Tank CFD Simulation, ANSYS Fluent Training

Description

This project simulates a mixer tank using ANSYS Fluent. In industry, mixing is the process of combining heterogeneous materials to make them more homogeneous, and industrial mixers are machines designed to blend, homogenize, and unify different materials into a single substance. Mixers handle virtually any combination of solids or liquids required for a given product, driving heat and mass transfer between the combined components or phases — a process essential to nearly all modern industrial manufacturing and processing. With their powerful motors and blades, mixers are widely used across pharmaceutical, chemical, agricultural, and food and beverage industries.

This project models a mixer tank, investigating the effect of its rotating impeller on the mixing process across three phases: air, water, and salt. Water and salt each enter the tank at a mass flow rate of 0.6 kg/s.

The geometry was designed in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid totaling 152,641 elements.

Methodology

The three-phase mixing process — air, water, and salt — was captured using the VOF multiphase model, with impeller rotation modeled using the MRF (Moving Reference Frame) method at a rotational speed of 10 rpm.

Conclusion

Results include contours of mixture density, velocity, phase ID, and volume fractions for water, air, and salt. The results clearly show that the impeller's rotation successfully drives three-phase mixing throughout the tank, confirming the simulation captures the intended blending behavior of the mixer system.