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Chycago

Flow Environment

The CHyCAgO facility allows experimental studies of stirring tank flows. The facility has been designed in the frame of the LEDITH joint laboratory with CETIM (www.ledith.eu ).

The facility is described as a cylindrical tank with flat bottom, three baffles with an adaptive distance between the baffles and the wall, and a central shaft allowing mixing through two types of impeller: 4-blades paddle (90°) and 4-blades pitched paddle (45°) with the distance between the impeller and the bottom wall which can be adapted.

The facility can produce agitated flows with a rotating speed range from 3 to 600 rpm with a flow producing a torque up to 120Nm. The facility is fully transparent to allow optical access and use of optical measurement techniques like stereo-PIV.

Figure 1: Chycago (Comportement Hydraulique dans une Cuve Agitée Optimisée) facility

Instrumentation Techniques

Instrumentation is installed on the engine and on the shaft. Optical devices are also used. Instrumentation techniques include

  • engine encoder to regulate the rotor speed
  • gear reduction to measure the actual speed on the shaft
  • strain gauge based torque-meter
  • vertical and horizontal calibration plates for imaging techniques provided with a 4 mm optical displacement sensor
    - Double pulsed lased and synchronized cameras for Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry measurements

Figure 2: Stereo PIV measurements of U, V and W velocity components of the liquid phase in horizontal test section and velocity magnitude of the liquid phase in the vertical section

Fields of Application

Given the large size, the facility is ideal for the study of industrial-scale mixing phenomena and for validation of CFD codes. The versatility of the facility includes the possibility to study multiphase flows, including solid and gaseous dispersion. The high engine power makes the facility suitable for study of fluids of high viscosity while achieving turbulence at the same time.  

Stereo-PIV in water at different rotation speeds and with the two different types of impellers were measured in the facility and led to two conference papers.

Recently, stereo-PIV and PTV measurements were performed with water and up to 10% in volume of hydrogel particles, allowing the calculation of both solid and liquid velocities. Results will be published in the near future.

Project Highlights

 D. Laboureur, C. Spaccapaniccia, M. Van Cappellen, C. ALzard, T. Aiouaz, J.M. Buchlin, « Mesures de stéréo-PIV dans une cuve agitée », CFTL 2018, 17-21 September 2018, Dourdan, France, Proceedings p.271-278

C. Spaccapaniccia , C. Alzard,  D. Laboureur, T. Aiouaz, M. Van Cappellen, F.Bérot and J.M. Buchlin, “Experimental and numerical study of solid – liquid mixing in stirring tank ”, MIXING16, 9-12 September, Toulouse, France