(84a) Predicting the Diameters of Droplets Produced in Turbulent Liquid-Liquid Dispersion

Liquid-liquid dispersion is a common chemical manufacturing batch process typically performed in agitated tanks. The physics informing the droplet size distribution is a complex convolution of impeller speed, impeller type, fluid properties, and flow conditions. In this work, we present three a priori mechanistic modeling approaches for predicting the droplet diameter distributions as a function of system operating conditions. In the first approach, called the two-fluid approach, we use high-resolution solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations to directly model the flow of each phase and the corresponding droplet breakup/coalescence events. In the second approach, based on an Eulerian-Lagrangian model, we describe the dispersed fluid as individual spheres undergoing ongoing breakup and coalescence events per user-defined interaction kernels. In the third approach, called the Eulerian-Parcel model, we model a sub-set of the droplets in the Eulerian-Lagrangian model to estimate the overall behavior of the entire droplet population. We discuss output from each model within the context of predictions from first principles turbulent theory and measured data. We then discuss the scalability of each method to various operating volumes/conditions.