Assessment of Prototypic and Closed Loop Operation During Pulse Jet Mixer Tests With Non-Cohesive Solids to Develop Scale-Up Relationships

The Hanford Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) in Richland, Washington is applying pulse jet mixer (PJM) technology for slurry mixing applications requiring solids mixing, solids suspension, fluid blending, and release of gases generated by radiolysis and thermal processes. Experiments were conducted to investigate pulse jet mixer performance in two different experimental configurations: one using intermittent flow through the pulse tube with non-prototypic refill and the other with prototypic reciprocating flow. Models developed to predict the critical suspension velocity (UCS ), cloud height, and concentration based on the intermittent flow data. This model under predicted the UCS condition for data obtained using prototypic reciprocating flow. When an adjustment to the settling velocity was incorporated into the model to address the effects of intermittent flow, the resulting reciprocating flow model more closely matched the experimental data.Copyright © 2011 by ASME