Smart baffle placement for chaotic mixing

Abstract

It is well known that fluid mixing can often be improved by the introduction of ‘baffles’ into the flow – the problem of baffle placement is examined here for chaotic fluid mixing of a highly viscous fluid. A simple model for a planetary mixer, with one stirring element, is modified by the introduction of one or more stationary baffles. Regular regions of poor mixing in the unbaffled flow are shown to be significantly reduced in size if the location of the baffles is chosen so that the flow necessarily generates ‘topological chaos’. By contrast, the positioning of baffles in superficially similar ways that do not generate such ‘topological chaos’ fails to provide a similar improvement.