Bottom Pressure Method for the Determination of the Flooding/Loading Transition in an Aerated Vessel Stirred by a Rushton Impeller

A novel method to determine the flooding/loading transition point (Nf) was proposed based on the measurements of the bottom pressure. Experiments were carried out in an aerated vessel stirred with a Rushton impeller in single-phase and two-phase systems. The results showed that the bottom pressure (P) in the single-phase system had a parabolic decrease with the increasing impeller speed (N), which followed the Bernoulli Effect; the flooding/loading transition was defined by a sharp change in the P–N curve. The data were well consistent with the results obtained by the global gas holdup method, as well as the existing literature data on flooding/loading transition.