Micro-PIV measurement and CFD analysis of a thin liquid flow between rotating and stationary disks

Abstract  

A strongly sheared flow in a thin liquid layer between rotating and stationary disks is studied experimentally and numerically to clarify the characteristics of the flow in rotation-shearing chemical reactors. The disk diameter is 10 mm and the separation between the disks is 500 μm. The rotational speeds that are examined are 300, 500 and 700 rpm. The micro-PIV technique is used to measure the velocity in the liquid layer. A commercial CFD software is also used to obtain the results for the comparison and validation purposes. The overall velocity distributions revealed by the micro-PIV measurement are in good agreement with the CFD results. Both results show some interesting characteristics of the flow field, including the presence of a secondary flow and its influence on the tangential velocity profiles. The near-wall measurement in the micro-PIV technique is appreciably improved by the use of a simple digital, high-pass filtering technique that is applied to the acquired particle images. It is found that the flow characteristics in the thin liquid layer can be evaluated efficiently if the micro-PIV technique is used together with the high-pass filtering technique that is examined here.