Geometric parameters of a ribbon impeller were optimized on the basis of numerical calculations obtained from the solution of our own 3D/2D hybrid model. The optimization was made taking into account mixing power and homogenization time for ribbon impellers with a different number of ribbons and width operating in a laminar motion for Newtonian fluid. Due to minimum mixing energy required to stir a unit volume of liquid the most efficient impeller appeared to be that with one ribbon of width equal to 0.1 to 0.15 of the mixing vessel diameter. Impellers with more than one ribbon needed much higher mixing power but did not increase significantly secondary circulation in the vessel. These impellers increased first of all primary circulation, i.e. they increased only circular motion of liquid in the vessel.

In the study a new proposal of convective velocity determination necessary for eddy size determination from the dissipative range in a turbulent flow in a mixer was made. The proposed quantity depends on all the mean and fluctuating velocity components. By applying convective velocity one may determine the distribution of time and linear Taylor microscale in a stirred vessel.

The study analyses application possibilities of filtration and thickening models in evaluation of papermaking suspension drainage rate. The authors proposed their own method to estimate the drainage rate on the basis of an existing Ergun capillary model of liquid flow through a granular material. The proposed model was less sensitive to porosity changes than the Ergun model. An empirical verification proved robustness of the proposed approach. Taking into account discrepancies in the published data concerning how the drainage velocity of papermaking suspension is defined, this study examines which of the commonly applied models matches experimental results the best.

Gravity dewatering of fibrous suspension is one of basic technological operations in paper production process. Although there are numerous methods to determine dewatering of such suspensions, none of them can measure undisturbed flow of removed water. In the paper the idea and design of a new apparatus for the determination of drainage rate of fibrous suspensions is presented. The apparatus differs from other known devices by minimisation of filtrate flow resistance in the outlet part of the equipment. In the second part of the paper measurements of the drainage rate have been presented. The flow resistance of the fluid through the bottom wire screen in the device was determined. The calculated flow resistance will be used in the developed model of dynamic drainage of fibrous suspensions, which will be discussed in our following paper (Przybysz et al., 2014).

Feasibility of a model of gas bubble break-up and coalescence in an air-lift column enabling determination of bubble size distributions in a mixer with a self-aspirating impeller has been attempted in this paper. According to velocity measurements made by the PIV method with a self-aspirating impeller and Smagorinski’s model, the spatial distribution of turbulent energy dissipation rate close to the impeller was determined. This allowed to positively verify the dependence of gas bubble velocity used in the model, in relation to turbulent energy dissipation rate. Furthermore, the range of the eddy sizes capable of breaking up the gas bubbles was determined. The verified model was found to be greatly useful, but because of the simplifying assumptions some discrepancies of experimental and model results were observed.

This study presents the results of tests on the mixing power and distribution of three velocity components in the mixing tank for an FBT impeller during tank emptying with an operating impeller. A laser PIV system was used to determine speed distributions. It was found that for the relative liquid height in the tank H* = H/H0 ≈ 0.65 and H* ≈ 0.45, the liquid circulation in the impeller zone changed from radial to axial and vice versa. These changes were accompanied by changes in the mixing power which even reached 40%. In the theoretical part, a method of calculating the mixing power using the classical model of the central vortex and distribution of the tangential speed in the impeller zone was proposed. Although the method turned out to be inaccurate, it was useful for determining the relative power.