Simulation and Control of Drop Size Distributions in Stirred Liquid/Liquid Systems

Techniques to control the particle distribution may significantly improve the performances of liquid/liquid mixing processes in many industrial applications. Currently there are no mathematical tools available that can be used to control the transient processes in stirred liquid/liquid systems in CFD simulations. This paper addresses the simulation of dispersions using population balance equations and describes the coupling of the flow solver FASTEST 3D, that simulates the dispersion in stirred tanks, with MATLAB. This coupling makes a vast variety of control routines from the MATLAB Control Toolbox directly available in the stirrer simulations. Also an exemplary control design, using an identified model and a linear quadratic regulator is presented and discussed.