Numerical simulation of shear and normal forces in standard and shear flow sequencing batch reactor (SF-SBR)

The purpose of this contribution is to compare the shear and the normal stresses in two different types of bioreactors. In the first one (SBR), the granules are generated by liquid and bubbles flow, whereas in the second one (SF-SBR), the shear rate is achieved by installing a rotating cylinder inside the reactor. Such shear flow can be applied for anaerobic process in the wastewater treatment. The results demonstrate the effective role of the process parameters and the reactor geometry on the shear and normal stresses and consequently on the granulation process. Hereby, the different tendencies of the velocity fields, the particle sedimentation as well as Taylor vortices in (SF-SBR), are observed. (© 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)