Design and analysis of mixing machines

Abstract

The mixing of compounds in a highly viscous medium is important in many industrial settings; from food processing to the manufacturing of rocket fuel and drugs. Experts in mixing have long been aware of how things become mixed in a nonturbulent flow, but there has been little quantitative analysis of such mixing processes. As recent developments in chaos theory have found their way into the engineering literature, there have been some attempts to apply these ideas toward numerically quantifying nonturbulent mixing processes. Chaos theory is a new name for an old subject in mathematics, dynamical systems theory which includes ergodic theory. By examining the older literature of ergodic theory, one can determine what is necessary to quantify nonturbulent mixing processes. This has led to the methods which are suggested in this dissertation. After discussing some principles of ergodic theory, the design of a bladeless mixer is presented. The philosophy of this design is to adopt an abstract mathematically mixing system around which to design and build an actual machine. Ergodic theory is then used to develop methods for quantifying nonturbulent mixing processes by both experimental and numerical means. These methods are then applied to the bladeless mixer.