MIXING EFFICIENCY CHALLENGE

CASE 1:

o Short mixing tee with hot inlet velocity of 3m/s

o Momentum ratio of 2

CASE 2:

o Short mixing with hot inlet velocity of 3 m/s

o Momentum ration of 4

CASE 3:

o Long mixing tee with hot inlet velocity of 3m/s

o Momentum ratio of 2
DISCRETIZATION:

ICEM CFD have been used to create Multi-block structured mesh generation with inflation
layer. Best quality with determinant value of 0.482 is achieved (0.2 is minimum requirement
for Ansys fluent solver)

TURBULENCE MODEL:

1. In order to capture viscous-sublayer effects K-e model (realizable-standard wall function)

have been used. First cell height has been calculated based on Y+ =30 (for K-e model).
2. Mixing length have been calculated as per Prandtl’s hypothesis which states

L=k*y

Where y=Total Length of pipe

K= Turbulence Model constant (0.40)

3. In order to capture mixing domain fine mesh have been created for above mentioned
Length. (Approx. 60.8 mm)

PLOTS:

1.TEMPERATURE

CASE 01
CASE 02

CASE 03

VELOCITY

CASE 01
CASE 02

CASE 03

Table 1: Comparison of Data’s

 S.No. Cold inlet Cell Count Outlet Temp. No. of Iterations for
velocity convergence
V(m/s) T(c)
CASE 1(Short pipe) 6 Hexahedra: 12.143 238
236816
CASE 2(Short pipe) 12 Hexahedra: 11.243 238
236816
CASE 3(Long pipe) 6 Hexahedra: 12 270
272916

Note: Mesh convergence reached

Since above mentioned design points are not adequate to conclude which parameter
contributes to lower outlet temp so further 2 parametric studies have been carried out
and results are tabulated.

Table 2: Further parametric studies to observe effects of increasing velocities of cold and hot
stream

S.No. V(m/s) Cell Count Outlet Temp. No. of Iterations

for convergence
T(c)
CASE 4 (Increasing Cold inlet Hexahedra: 10.9 248
cold inlet velocity velocity 236816
further) 16
CASE 5 (Increasing Hot inlet Hexahedra: 17.38 543
hot inlet velocity velocity 236816
further) 16

SPECIAL STUDY PLOT:

CASE 4: (Increasing cold inlet velocity)

TEMPERATURE PLOT:

VELOCITY PLOT:
CASE 5: (Increasing hot inlet velocity)

TEMPERATURE PLOT:

VELOCITY PLOT:

CONCLUSION:
1. It has been found that momentum ratio plays a vital role in deciding the outlet
temperature of the Tee mixing pipe.
2. For the lower values of Mixing ratio, the velocity of cold inlet is significantly higher
than hot inlet stream but the changes in outlet temperature is negligible. When the
Mixing ratio further increased, then drastic changes in outlet temperature is observed
and for the value of 16m/s, the outlet temperature is 10.9 oC.
3. When efforts are made to increase the hot inlet velocity, the outlet temperature starts
increasing rapidly, this is due to effect that hot stream is injected to the core flow of the
cold stream (Refer: Velocity and temperature contours for hot inlet velocity of 16m/s).
4. It is evident that for decreasing the outlet temperature Mixing ratio has to be increased.
5. From the CASE 5, it is observed that the No. of iterations for convergence is 543,
whereas all other cases got converged in nearly 230-250 iterations. From this it is
observed that skewness angle of the cells has direct influence on the convergence. For
(CASE 5: Minimum skewness angle is 25o but for all other cases Minimum skewness
angle is 32o). This changes have been studied using parametrization of the mesh
parameters.