In the mix
21 Nov 2000
AEA Technology has announced an upgrade to its chemical reactor design software tool, CFX-ProMixus.
CFX-ProMixus provides detailed analysis of mixing vessel processes through an embedded and fully automated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver.
Using an intuitive interface, the user specifies reactor configurations from an extendable library of tank, baffle and impeller templates. CFX ProMixus then automatically performs a CFD simulation of the flow within that vessel.
The output is presented as a gallery of images and tables that permits pre-selection of component designs and reduces the number of iterations needed to develop optimum mixing performance.
'Mixer manufacturers, including Hayward Gordon (Canada) and Sharpe Mixers (USA), have endorsed our software', says Georg Scheuerer, AEA Technology's VP of CFX Product Development, 'These companies are providing new templates of their impellers which can subsequently be readily accessible in our software, making CFX-ProMixus a virtual mixing vessel.'
With CFX-ProMixus, engineers can perform automatic analysis of tanks with retreat curve impellers common in many fine chemicals batch reactors, or of tanks with a bottom type based on the standard ASME section VIII similar to BS 5500.
They can also analyse vessels with the impeller located within the dished bottom of the tank, which is widespread for batch reactors mixing organic liquids as well as other applications.
Engineers can download a demo version of CFX-ProMixus from www.aeat.com/cfx
