A qualitative study of mixing a fluid inside a mechanical mixer with the effect of thermal buoyancy

This paper is concerned with the rotational motion of the impeller and the thermal buoyancy within a mechanical mixer. The task was investigated numerically using the ANSYS-CFX simulator. The programmer is based on the finite volume method to solve the differential equations of fluid motion and heat transfer. The impeller has hot surfaces while the vessel has cold walls. The rotational movement of the impeller was controlled by the Reynolds number, while the intensity of the thermal buoyancy effect was controlled by the Richardson number. The equations were solved for a steady flow. After analyzing the results of this research, we were able to conclude that there is no effect of the values of Richardson number on the power number. Also, with the presence of the thermal buoyancy effect, the quality of the fluid mixing becomes more important. The increasing Richardson number increases the value of the Nusselt number of the impeller.