Mixing of Viscous and Complex Fluids Course
Mixing in the adhesives, sealants and coatings industries is an important unit operation and often critical for achieving product quality metrics. The mixing operations are made more difficult due to the fact that the fluids being processed are highly viscous and often non-Newtonian (their viscosities are not constant and determined by the rate of mixing they experience). This course will discuss how viscosity is defined, measured, and how the measurements are interpreted for design of mixing, and other fluid handling, equipment. Finally examples of equipment commonly used mixing in these industries will be reviewed.
Learning Objectives
- Mixing & the "Process Result"
- Viscosity and Its impact on Mixing Timescales & Blend time
- Examples of calculations: Impeller power draw and blend time
- Extreme rheological behavior: Yield stress fluids
- Equipment for mixing viscous and non-Newtonian fluids
Richard Grenville, SPX Flow
Richard Grenville is a Principal Engineer at Philadelphia Mixing Solutions LLC, an SPX FLOW brand, and has nearly 40 years of experience in the field of mixing. He studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham in the UK, graduating in 1983, and started work as an Applications Engineer for Chemineer Ltd. sizing agitators and static mixers in response to customers' inquiries. After a brief period working as a Process Engineer at Unilever Research he went to work at the Fluid Mixing Processes consortium, which is managed by the British Hydromechanics Research Group, as a Project Engineer. His main area of research was mixing of non-Newtonian fluids. He also registered as a graduate student at Cranfield Institute of Technology and received his PhD in 1992.