Improving mixing performance by curved‐blade static mixer

Abstract This article addresses design modification to a flat‐blade static mixer to enhance mixing performance. The static mixer elements used in this work consist of four blades with curvature made to intensify turbulent‐like flow, while reducing the pressure drop. The blades were mounted on a cylindrical housing with 45° rotation relative to the axial direction. The mixer assembly was used in three different arrangements of 8, 10, and 14 elements for a range of Reynolds number between 600 and 7,000. The coefficient of variance (COV) of samples was used to measure the mixing quality. The curved‐blade mixer provides considerable improvement in mixing quality compared with the flat‐blade mixer and comparable to the SMX mixer. Compared with the flat‐blade static mixer, the new design reduces the COV by up to about 50%. This effect is more pronounced when the number of mixing elements increases. Furthermore, the friction factors for the modified mixer, obtained at a wide range of Reynolds number, were apparently smaller than those for the flat‐blade, SMX, and SMV mixers. The correlation presented for the friction factor, when all mixer arrangements and aspect ratios were considered, supports the experimental data with ±15% deviation.