Director, Multidisciplinary Programs

November 3, 2010

Mark Smith

KateGleasonCollege of Engineering

Rochester Institute of Technology

111 Lomb Memorial Drive

Rochester, NY14623-5608

Phone: (585) 475-7102

Fax: (585) 475-7955

E-mail:

Subject:Proposal for Senior Design Project 2010

SPX Flow Technology – LIGHTNIN Mixers

Cc:Rich Adams, Bernie Gigas, Jim Myers

Mark,

This is a follow up to our meeting on October 14th, where we discussed sponsoring a Senior Design Project for the up coming Winter/Spring Terms for 2010.

We have reviewed the details of our discussion with our management team and have come up with the following proposal for a Design Project.

Side Entry Agitator Fluid Force Measurement Test Stand:

Side entry agitators are used in various industries to mix fluids to yield a desired process result. This can include blending two miscible liquids, suspending solids off the bottom of the vessel and/or dispersing a gas stream fed directly in front of the impeller. A typical full scale side entry agitator is shown below:

The side entry agitator is typically installed near the bottom of the vessel with the impeller blades located at a clearance of 9 to 12” off bottom. The impeller can either be mounted so it’s horizontal to the tank bottom or at an angle pointing down towards the tank bottom (typically 5 degrees). Many styles of agitators exist and they can be used for light duty (i.e. blending waterlike fluids) or for heavy duty (i.e. paperstock blending). Depending on the fluid being mixed, a different level of fluid forces acting on the blades will exist, thus changing the design requirements (i.e. torque, bending moment, thrust). LIGHTNIN has tabulated design factors for different applications. It is our desire to be able to take test impellers and actually quantify these numbers using current technology (i.e. load cells, computer analysis, etc.). It’s also desired to see if the fluid force can be scaled from one scale to another.

The deliverables for the project will be as follows:

Design and manufacture a test stand that can be used to test fluid forces for a side entry impeller. The goal would be to quantify the fluid forces at different operating conditions (e.g. HP level, gassed or ungassed operation, off wall distance, etc.).
The scale for the testing would be impellers in the 8-12” diameter range. A tank in the 8 to 10 ft. diameter range would be used for the testing.
Currently we use LABVIEW software in our mixing lab to take measurements using the computer (e.g. torque readings, forces measured from load cells, etc.). We currently use this to measure top entry agitator fluid forces, which is rather straight forward. Due to its orientation and sealing requirements, measuring a side entry agitator’s fluid forces is more challenging. A new LABVIEW code would also be part of the deliverable.
A series of test runs and results would need to be part of the deliverable as well (using an existing impeller design). This way the new test stand can be evaluated.

LIGHTNIN would provide the materials to manufacture the test stand as well as labor to assist in assembly. We will provide a budget of $5,000.00 US$ for this project. The highest cost would be the load cells.

I will be the point contact on this project. I attend RIT as a Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student pursuing my ME in Mechanical Engineering. I have not had a wide exposure to currently faculty so I don’t have a specific recommendation for a sponsor.

Please review this and let us know if there are additional details you need to move forward. If the project list is already full for the Winter/Spring, we would be interested in participating in the next round of projects in the future. Thanks.

Regards,

Richard O. Kehn

Senior Technologist – Mixing

(585) 527-1477