From the production of polymers in stirred tank reactors to the making of Italian pasta through the moulder-extruders, "optimisation" is the keyword for the process engineers and plant operators. The question commonly asked by process engineers and plant operators is how to achieve the target product quality consistently in the shortest time and with the minimum energy input. To answer these questions, the engineers need to have a good understanding of the processes in their equipment.
For example, how the fluid is stirred and heated or mixed with other fluids and reacted chemically. These processes are complex and their effects are often inter-linked with each other. For example, the mixing of two fluids leads to a chemical reaction which generates heat and change in fluid viscosity which in turns affects the way of mixing.
In the last decade Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become a widely used analysis tool by engineers to gain a better understanding of the complex flow processes in their equipment.
The CD adapco Group
has published an article
which details the ways in which CFD can be used to
optimized these processes.
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