The Details of Turbulent Mixing Process and their Simulation

This chapter is devoted to turbulent mixing processes carried out in - mainly - stirred vessels. It reviews first a number of turbulent flow characteristics as far as relevant to a wide variety of single-phase and two-phase mixing processes and, secondly and most importantly, the details of the advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques required for simulating such processes with a large degree of confidence. The processes considered comprise blending, solids suspension, dissolution, precipitation, crystallization, chemical reactions, and dispersing gases and immiscible liquids. The emphasis in this chapter is on the fruitful application of Large Eddy Simulations for reproducing the local and transient flow conditions in which these processes are carried out and on which their performance depends. In addition, examples are given of using Direct Numerical Simulations of flow and transport phenomena in small periodic boxes with the view to find out about relevant details of the local processes. Finally, substantial attention is paid throughout this chapter to the attractiveness and success of exploiting lattice-Boltzmann techniques for the more advanced CFD approaches.