Enhancement Of Liquid Mixing In A Soft-elastic Reactor Based On Bionics With A Soft Object

Soft-elastic reactor(SER)is a new bionic approach to mixing of viscous liquid.According to the visualization images,the isolated regions were observed.When the isolated regions existed,the mixing efficiency of SER was hindered.The isolated regions need be eliminated.In this works,the soft object was introduced to enhance the mixing efficiency of the SER.The mixing performance of Newtonian glycerin water solutions(1200 ± 50 m Pa.s)were experimentally investigated inside a SER made with silicon material equipped with a soft baffle(SEB)of the same material.The non-baffled SER was also examined for comparison.Visualization experiments based on an acid-base reaction was used to reveal the presence of isolated regions,and observe the structural changes of isolated regions.The mixing performance was characterized by the mixing curve(the mixing degree with the time)and the mixing time.Results show that the SEB could improve mixing efficiency of the SER at the optimum positioning angle 90°.At the penetration angles of 90°,the isolated region diminished compared with the non-baffled SER,and the mixing time was reduced by 34.3±2.4% at the penetration depth of the external probe of 2.5 cm and the penetration frequency of 1.00 Hz.Secondly,an elastic rod was vertically implemented on the bottom of the SER.The enhancing effect was quantitatively evaluated by the mixing time.The effects of the position of the elastic rod,the height of the elastic rod,the maximum-penetration depths and the penetration frequency were studied respectively.Results show that after the elastic rod was introduced,the structure of the isolated region was changed and the mixing time reduced.When the elastic rod was close to the impacting probe,the mixing enhancement was more obvious.When the height of the elastic rod was below the liquid level,with the increase of the elastic rod height,and the enhancing effect increased.When the height of the elastic rod was greater than the liquid level,with further increase of the elastic rod height,the enhancing effect was not further improved.Choosing the best condition of the rod position(closest to the impacting probe)and the best condition of the height(just over the liquid level),the maximumpenetration depth of 2.5 cm,the mixing time was reduced by 57% compared with that without the elastic rod.In the experiments preformed,so far,increasing maximum-penetration depth is always beneficial to increasing efficiency.