Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2019, Vol. 11(8) 1–13
Ó The Author(s) 2019
Study on the internal two-phase flow of DOI: 10.1177/1687814019871731
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
the inverted-umbrella aerator

Liang Dong1 , Jiawei Liu1, Houlin Liu1, Cui Dai2 and

Dmitry Vladimirovich Gradov3

Abstract
In order to reveal the gas–liquid two-phase flow pattern of inverted-umbrella aerator, the high-speed photography tech-
nology, particle image velocimetry, and Volume of Fluid model are employed to capture the free-surface dynamics and
velocity distribution. The Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations are validated by experimental data and the results
are in good agreement with experiment. The simulation results of flow field, streamline distribution, velocity distribution,
free-surface deformation, and turbulence kinetic energy are analyzed at in time and at radial profiles sampled at several
vertical positions. Back surface of each blade revealed the area of low-pressure, which can drag air into water directly
from surface and thus enhance liquid aeration and oxygenation capacity. Lifting capacity of the inverted-umbrella aerator
is enough to get the liquid at the bottom of the aeration tank accelerated toward liquid surface generating the hydraulic
jump. As a result, liquid phase splashes capture portions of air promoting aeration of the solution. A clear circulation
whirlpool is formed during the process. The circulation whirlpool starts at the bottom of the impeller moving upward
along the plate until the outer edge of the impeller, which is close to the free surface. The circulation whirlpool indicates
that the inverted-umbrella aerator plays a significant role in shallow aeration. The turbulence intensity created by the
impeller gradually reduces with depth. The position (z = 0.65 H) is the watershed in the tank. The oxygen mass transfer
mainly occurs in the layer above watershed.

Keywords
Multiphase flow, inverted-umbrella aerator, high-speed photography, particle image velocimetry, numerical simulation

Date received: 5 October 2018; accepted: 23 July 2019

Handling Editor: James Baldwin

Introduction there are different aeration equipment, for example,

rotating brush, rotating disk, inverted-umbrella aera-
Sewage biological treatment system has been widely tor.2 Inverted-umbrella aerator has the advantages of
used over the world to fight water pollution growing.1
Oxidation ditch process is one of the main methods of
1
sewage biological treatment system. It is one improved Research Center of Fluid Machinery Engineering and Technology, Jiangsu
University, Zhenjiang, China
activated sludge treatment technology, which mainly 2
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang,
drives sewage and activated sludge mixed to form a cir- China
culating flow by a surface aeration equipment. Aeration 3
LUT School of Engineering Science, Lappeenranta University of
equipment is one of the key factors affecting efficiency, Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland
energy consumption, and stability of oxidation ditch.
Corresponding author:
There are several different kinds of oxidation ditches, Cui Dai, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Jiangsu University, No.
such as integrative oxidation ditch, orbital oxidation 301 Xuefu Road, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, China.
ditch, and carrousel oxidation ditch. Correspondingly, Email: [email protected]

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2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

simple structure, oxygenation capacity, and high-power power number (Np) of the inverted-umbrella aerator
efficiency, and it can combine oxygenation and stirring with different submerged depths. They presented rela-
functions.3 Thus, it becomes the most used aeration tionship between the mass transfer coefficient, power
equipment in oxidation ditch. number, gas hold-up, and flow pattern.
Over the past 30 years, the experimental study on Kumar and Rao16 simulated the turbulence energy
inverted-umbrella aerator has been going. The studied dissipation rate of the liquid around the inverted-
parameters included impeller diameter, number and umbrella aerator by VisiMix software and found that
size of blades as well as submergence and water depth. the oxygen mass transfer rate was only related to the
The studies show that these variables affect aeration energy dissipation rate. Gandhi et al.17 extracted the char-
performance of inverted-umbrella aerator and reveal acteristics of the pressure pulsation signal by using the
the relationship between oxygenation capacity, speed, chaos analysis technique, which included estimation of
diameter, and number of blades.4 On the basis of Lyapunov exponent, correlation dimensions, and
experimental works, Ognean5 determined the correla- Kolmogorov entropy. Shi and Wang18 established non-
tions between oxygen mass transfer rate, impeller dia- linear relations between chaotic invariants and kLa. The
meter, rotation speed, and shallow volume. Established numerical simulations of three aerator types of different
mathematical description to express dependence of structure were presented to analyze the stirring effects and
oxygen mass transfer rate on power consumption. Cao6 power efficiency of the aerators. Xing et al.19,20 designed
studied experimentally oxygen transfer of high-power and simulated the inverted-umbrella aerator blade, which
surface aerator as a function of mixing speed and was arranged according to the variable helix angle of the
immersed depth. logarithmic spiral line. Using simulation, based on fluid-
In order to understand better hydrodynamics char- structure interaction and finite element methods, the opti-
acteristics of the inverted-umbrella surface aerator, the mal design of the aerator blade has been found.
structure of inverted-umbrella aerator and the impeller Operation of inverted-umbrella aerator is a challen-
form were studied. Four inverted-umbrella aerators of ging task, since it involves complex phenomena taking
different configuration were developed to find out the place in multiphase media, such as hydraulic jump, gas
variations in overall oxygen transfer coefficient and entrainment, and wave breaking. Although there are
aeration efficiency. Thakre et al.7 developed four studies on inverted-umbrella aerator using numerical
inverted-umbrella aerators to find out the variations in simulation methods, some scholars employed rigid
overall oxygen transfer coefficient and aeration effi- cover or wall surface to deal with the free surface that
ciency by varying the parameters like rotation speed, ignores surface fluctuations. It contributes to deviation
depth of immersion, and blade tip angle. Pan8 studied between simulation results and experimental data.
the oxygenation performance of several different types Therefore, the internal flow characteristics and oper-
of inverted-umbrella aerator and their influence on the ation modes of inverted-umbrella aerator are studied in
oxygenation capacity varying blade angle and number this research, which helps to optimize structure of the
of blades to analyze the impeller design. aerator and control hydrodynamic characteristics in
Zhou et al.9 studied the power efficiency of the aera- oxidation ditch. The outcomes are to provide valuable
tor. For the purpose of studying the optimal value of data for the design of oxidation ditch. In this article,
the power efficiency of the inverted-umbrella aerator, high-speed photography technique and Volume of
the rotation speed and immersed depth of the stirrer Fluid (VOF) model with Level set are employed to
were changed and the power efficiency of the inverted- study the gas–liquid interface motion dynamics as well
umbrella aerator under different conditions was mea- as multiphase flow pattern in an aeration tank driven
sured. The experiment results revealed the correlations by an inverted-umbrella aerator.
between power efficiency, immersion depth, and mixing
speed.
Development of high-performance computers and Test system
continuous improvement of numerical methods and
models make Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) a The test object is an inverted-umbrella aerator wholly
powerful tool actively used to optimize aeration sys- submerged in a circular aeration tank. The diameter of
tems.10–13 Rao and Kumar14 studied the mass transfer the inverted-umbrella aerator impeller is only 150 mm,
coefficient, power efficiency, power number, and other so the hole connected with the shaft is processed by wire
parameters numerically and experimentally. The cutting technology. The aeration tank is made of plexi-
researchers found that the power efficiency of the glass with a diameter and a height of 600 mm. And, the
inverted-umbrella aerator was not static, and higher liquid level of the aeration tank is 200 mm. The aeration
power efficiency can be achieved by adjusting the power tank was designed without baffles, so as to reduce the
input of the inverted-umbrella aerator. Deshmukh and factors affecting stirred flow field. Initially, the impeller
Joshi15 measured the mass transfer coefficient (kLa) and was placed just below the liquid surface,
Dong et al. 3

Figure 1. Inverted-umbrella type impeller.

correspondingly to submerged depth of 0 mm. And, it

rotates clockwise around the central axis with a rotation
speed of 240 r/min, the Reynolds number is 1.41 3 105.
The geometric details of the inverted-umbrella type
impeller are shown in Figure 1. And, the schematic dia-
gram of test object is shown in Figure 2.

High-speed photography
To study the free-surface behavior and internal flow
characteristic during the operation of inverted-umbrella
aerator, the high-speed photography and particle
image velocimetry (PIV) system were used, as shown in
Figure 3. The testing apparatus mainly consist of
inverted-umbrella aerator, aeration tank, frequency
conversion cabinet, servo motor and lifting device,
LED lights, high-speed cameras, and PIV system. The
frequency conversion cabinet is used to control the
speed of rotation. The inverted-umbrella aerator is
fixed on a lifting device, and the immersion depth of
the impeller is adjusted by servo motor. Figure 2. Model diagram.
The main testing equipment of high-speed photogra-
phy is the high-speed camera produced by IDT com-
pany, the model of which is Motion Pro Y4LM-8. PIV
During the test, it is used simultaneously with the acqui- The PIV system mainly include light source, optical
sition software of Motion Studio to complete image arm, charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, and syn-
acquisition and transmission. The maximum resolution chronizer. The light source is Nd:YLF (Neodymium-
of the camera is 1024 3 1024, and the pixel size is Doped Yttrium Lithium Fluoride) laser with laser beam
14 3 14 mm. The shooting frequency was set to 720 Hz. intensities adjusted to 30 mJ per pulse. A light-guiding
During the experiment, for clearly capturing the free optical arm directs the pulsing laser beams to the test
surface, LED lights are located in the directions of area. When capturing, the relative position and height
above and below liquid surface. of the camera and laser to the aeration tank is adjusted
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

focused. Select the marked starting point and ending

point on the image, use the software calibration func-
tion, input the corresponding object size, and complete
the calibration. The interval time between two frames
was finally set to 600 ms. Because the inverted-umbrella
aerator and aeration tank is symmetrical, only one
phase condition is measured with pulse delay time of
0.25 s.

Computational method
The fluid domain of numerical model is divided
into two parts, that are rotating domain and outer sta-
tic domain. The computational domain is shown in
Figure 4, where H and z represents the liquid height
and vertical position, respectively. A structured array
of hexahedral mesh elements is applied to the model
using ICEM software. In order to check the influence
of mesh element number on the free surface, liquid sur-
face capture capacities under elements of 0.58, 1.15,
Figure 3. High-speed photography and PIV set-up. 2.30, and 2.80 million has been compared. When the
total grid number is 0.58, 1.15, 2.30, and 2.80 million,
the maximum height of hydraulic jump is 41 mm,
to ensure the focus position of laser waist and lens fall in 43 mm, 45 mm, and 47 mm respectively; 2.30 million
the test area. Al2O3 particles are seeded in the water, whose and 2.80 million is better than 1.15 million. And, there
average diameter is 1 mm. A CCD camera perpendicular is basically no difference between the free surface of
to the laser sheet is used for particle image capture. A syn- 2.30 and 2.80 million.
chronizer is adopted to ensure image acquisition synchro- Then, 2.30 million has been finally chosen consider-
nized with respect to the impeller rotation. ing computation time. Fine elements are concentrated
For PIV test, the calibration is especially important. in the regions of the free surface and inverted-umbrella
The object marked with scale was placed on the smooth aerator to capture detailed free-surface fluctuation as
surface of sheet light. And, a lamp is used as supple- well as the flow around the stirrer. The grid arrange-
mentary lighting source to make the scale lighter. ment is shown in Figure 5.
Adjust the camera’s aperture, focus, and body angle to The finite volume method was used to simulate gas–
capture the image so that the single image is evenly liquid mixing. The VOF with Level set model has been

Figure 4. Inverted-umbrella aerator computational domain: (a) computational domain and (b) rotating domain.
H is liquid level and z is vertical position of a sampled radial profile.
Dong et al. 5

Figure 5. Generated grid.

successfully used by many researchers for two-phase included in the RNG k–e turbulence model, enhancing
problems.21,22 accuracy for swirling flows.23
The calculation has the following main governing The impeller rotation is modeled by sliding mesh
equations. technique. The initial distribution of gas–liquid two-
The continuity equation is phase was achieved by Patch function.24,25 To solve
pressure–velocity equation, Semi-Implicit Pressure
∂r Method for Pressure Linked Equations (SIMPLE)
+ r  ðr~
uÞ = 0 ð1Þ
∂t algorithm in conjunction with ‘‘Geo-Reconstruct’’
The momentum equation is model to calculate volume fraction were used.
Residuals are defined as the imbalance in each conser-
∂r~u 
 vation equation summarized at each iteration. The cal-
+ ðr~
u  rÞ~
u =  rP + r  m r~ uT
u + r~ culation has converged when the scaled residuals went
∂t ð2Þ
g +~
+ r~ F below 10–4. Courant number is an important index for
VOF transient calculation. The smaller the value is, the
The volume fraction continuity equations are more the calculation is stable. But the convergence
takes more time. In this case, the initial time step was
∂a1
u  rða1 Þ = 0
+~ ð3Þ 6.944 3 10–5 s (the time required for the impeller to
∂t rotate 0.1°) the global float is less than 5. Then the time
∂a2 step has been gradually increased after the calculation
u  rða2 Þ = 0
+~ ð4Þ were stable until time step has been increased 10 times,
∂t
the global float was maintained at 7.
where a1 represents the volume fraction of liquid, a2
represents the volume fraction of air, and a1 + a2 = 1.
r represents the density of liquid. m represents the Verification of simulation reliability
dynamic viscosity coefficient of liquid. t represents the
time. ~u represents the velocity. P represents the pres-
Comparison on the vertical view of free surface
g represents the gravity acceleration. ~
sure. ~ F represents When the motor was run by the frequency controlling
the volume force form of surface tension. cabinet (the stable running frequency of the motor was
The numerical simulation was performed using 8 Hz), there was an algorithm of speed adjustment from
FLUENT 15.0. The mixing speed 240 r/min creates tur- 0 to the set value of rotating speed, which was accompa-
bulent flow. Therefore, VOF with Level set was applied nied by impeller acceleration. Therefore, during the
to simulate liquid surface motion and Renormalized test, the simulation results are divided into two states:
Group (RNG) k–e turbulence model was used to simu- start-up and stable rotation. Only the free-surface defor-
late turbulent flow. The effect of swirl on turbulence is mation at the stable rotation is considered in this article.
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 6. The planform of free surface: (a) simulated free surface and (b) photo of free surface.

liquid disperses into the fine droplets and falls back

into the water.

Comparison on the upward view of free surface

Figure 7 shows the relative pressure contour of the
inverted-umbrella aerator. It can be seen from Figure 7
that the relative pressure of the blade leading surface is
higher than that of the trailing surface. The low-
pressure area appears in the trailing surface near the
middle of the blade.
Figure 8 shows the bottom view of the free-surface
deformation near the inverted-umbrella aerator
obtained by simulation and high-speed photography.
In Figure 8(a), a large amount of air is accumulated
Figure 7. Relative pressure contour of impeller.
near the blade tip of the trailing surface of the blade.
Moving from the blade tip toward center of the aerator
gas volume is gradually decreasing. Finally, with a tri-
Figure 6 shows the top view of the free-surface angular shape, a three-clinging cavity is created stably
deformation near the aerator, which are obtained by behind the blade at this speed. The experiment also cap-
the CFD simulations and the high-speed photography tured this phenomenon, as shown in Figure 8(b). The
experiment, respectively. It can be seen from Figure 6 phenomenon shows that the inverted-umbrella aerator
that the free-surface deformations of the simulation has a strong entraining ability, which can directly carry
and experiment are similar, which supports the numeri- the air into the water to enhance its aeration and oxyge-
cal simulation qualitatively. The liquid in the pool nation capacity.
flows upward through the gap of the impeller and We can see that the numerical result is in a good
enters into the upper side of the plate. Then, under the agreement with the experimental data, and the CFD
effect of superposition of inertial and gravitational model used in this study is qualitatively validated.
forces, the liquid in the specific flow channel of the
plate would slide into the next flow channel. Finally, Comparison on the experimental and simulated
the liquid is ejected out from the blade leading surface
through the upper side of the plate, which is called
streamline
hydraulic jump. The liquid splashed from the hydraulic Figure 9 shows the experimental and simulated stream-
jump is mainly from the flow channel of the plate. At line of the inverted-umbrella aerator. It can be seen
the same time, it can be seen that the velocity of the that both the experiment and the simulation have simi-
liquid passing through the impeller gap is relatively lar internal flow trends. Because of the lifting capacity
small. As the impeller rotates, the velocity is increasing of the inverted-umbrella aerator, a clear circulation
gradually and reaching the maximum speed when the whirlpool is formed in the vertical cross-section. The
liquid leaves the leading surface of the blade. Then, the whole liquid flow pattern generally corresponds to that
Dong et al. 7

Figure 8. The bottom view of free surface: (a) simulated free surface and (b) photo of free surface.

Figure 10. Schematic representation of sampled radial profiles.

In the figure, 20 indicates the radial distance between monitoring points.

Comparison on the experimental and simulated

velocity
In order to analyze the velocity distribution of the aera-
tion tank in axial direction at different depths, radial
profiles were sampled at different vertical position to
monitor velocity. The radial distance r/R is 0.07, 0.13,
0.2, 0.27, 0.33, 0.4, 0.47, 0.53, 0.6, 0.67, 0.73, 0.8, 0.87,
and 0.93. The vertical positions are schematically
shown in Figure 10.
Figure 11 shows the axial velocity distribution at dif-
ferent depths. In the impeller domain (r/R \ 0.25), the
fluid velocity increases first then decreases in radial
direction, and reaches the maximum velocity at the tip
Figure 9. Streamlines and contour in vertical cross-section: of the impeller. The simulation results shown in the fig-
(a) simulated result and (b) experimental result. ure are in good agreement with the PIV results.
Due to the rotation of the impeller, there is maxi-
mum axial lifting speed at z . 0.75 H. The inverted-
of radial agitator. The liquid is pushed in radial direc- umbrella aerator acts as a surface aerator mainly
tion to the wall and moves down to the bottom of the affecting the liquid near the surface and has little
aeration tank. Finally, the liquid rises up to the free effect on the liquid for the depth lower than 0.75 H,
surface driven by the lifting capacity. which leads to the lowest velocity.
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 11. Axial velocity at different depth.

Figure 12. Three-dimensional streamline diagram of the flow

pattern created by the inverted-umbrella aerator.
Analysis of numerical simulation results
Streamline distribution
Figure 12 shows the simulation results of free surface the bottom of the impeller at 0.125 s and moves obli-
and the three-dimensional streamline of the inverted- quely upward along the lower side of the plate over
umbrella aerator. It can be seen from the figure that time. The circulation whirlpool appears right at the
the liquid at the bottom of the aeration tank is gathered outer edge of the impeller at 0.5 s. Then, the circulation
toward rotating axis below the stirrer. The liquid moves whirlpool moves outward in radial direction until the
up to the impeller under the influence of the aerator time reaches 1.25 s, by which it stabilizes in a certain
lifting capacity, and the streamlines move at the bottom position. Between 1.25 and 1.75 s, the shape of the
of the aeration tank in clockwise direction following streamlines below the free surface changes slightly. So,
the impeller motion. The liquid velocity at the bottom the liquid flow hydrodynamics seem to have reached
of the aeration tank is gradually increasing along the steady state.
direction of the streamlines resulting in a hydraulic
jump in radial direction. Analysis of stable flow field. From the above analysis, it
In the vicinity of the impeller, the liquid is subjected can be concluded that the steady operation of the
to a large shear action, and the turbulent kinetic energy inverted-umbrella aerator can be divided into three
and the flow velocity are the biggest in this region, lead- stages. At the initial operating stage, the impeller dis-
ing to the high transport capacity of the air. The oxy- charges the liquid above the plate because of rotating
gen mass transfer rate is the highest here accordingly. motion. The free-surface deformation appears above
The liquid velocity is lower in the bottom of the aera- the impeller, and the circulation whirlpool starts at the
tion tank, the streamlines change smoothly, and the bottom of the impeller. During the second stage, the
turbulence intensity is low. Depending on mixing speed, liquid flows into the upper side of the plate through the
impeller vertical position, and shallow depth, there gap, and the circulation whirlpool moves obliquely
could be even a velocity stagnation zone in the bottom upward along the lower side of the plate. At the last
of the aeration tank. stage, the whole aeration tank is stirred due to the
effect of the impeller rotation. Then, the free-surface
fluctuation becomes stable and the circulation whirl-
Flow field in vertical cross-section pool is formed, which originates at the outer edge of
Velocity distribution at different time. The liquid domain is the impeller. The streamline and liquid phase volume
mainly considered in this section. The velocity contours fraction in the vertical cross-section section of the aera-
and streamlines of the vertical cross-section are shown ted tank is shown in Figure 14 at t = 10 s.
in Figure 13. It can be seen that the area of fluctuation It can be seen from Figure 14 that the circulation
near impeller gradually expands, and the fluid diffuses whirlpool, formed by aerator, is very close to the free
in the vertical and horizontal directions simultaneously surface, and it is slightly different from the flow pattern
as time goes by. The circulation whirlpool appears near created by radial stirrer fully submerged. This indicates
Dong et al. 9

Figure 13. Velocity contours and streamlines diagram in vertical cross-section at different time: (a) t = 0.125 s, (b) t = 0.25 s,
(c) t = 0.5 s, (d) t = 0.75 s, (e) t = 1 s, (f) t = 1.25 s, (g) t = 1.5 s, and (h) t = 1.75 s.

that the inverted-umbrella aerator plays a significant representative moments during the aeration process.
role in stirring the shallow liquid flow. In addition, it Figure 15(a) is the initial free surface where inverted-
can be noticed from the figure that the high fraction of umbrella impeller is just submerged below the free
gas captured in water locates near the walls of the tank. surface and the surface remains calm. Figure 15(b)
This is due to the fact that with the rotation of the demonstrates the changes of the free surface of
impeller, the liquid in the tank is ejected along the blade inverted-umbrella aerator running at 0.125 s where the
radially (as seen in areas A in Figure 14). When the impeller has passed half cycle. It can be seen from
ejected liquid splashes fall back, they capture some the figure that the free surface first changes around the
amount of gas and drag them under water (as seen impeller due to the high-speed rotation. Because of the
areas C in Figure 14). effect of the inherent inertia, the surface deformation is
relatively smooth and presents six slightly elevated
crests. The blade vertex closest to the free surface has
Analysis of free-surface deformation at different time. The the maximum mean velocity. Due to the surface ten-
interface with the 0.5 gas phase volume fraction is cho- sion, the liquid above the impeller shows regular defor-
sen as the free surface. Figure 15 shows the free-surface mation. The surface away from the impeller has no
deformation and velocity distribution contours of some visible change.
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

the plate. At this time, the lifting capacity of the impel-

ler is weak, and only small amount of liquid flows into
the upper side of the plate through the gap of the impel-
ler. The surface near the impeller appears to have
inverted cone shape. The surface deformation expands.
Major part of the free surface remains calm since the
runtime is short.
Figure 15(d)–(f) shows free-surface deformations of
inverted-umbrella aerator running from 0.5 to 1 s. They
demonstrate that the lifting capacity of the impeller is
gradually enhanced with the rotation of the impeller.
The upper side of the plate is filled with liquid again,
and the liquid hydraulic jump in the aeration tank is
noticeable. The liquid is ejected obliquely upward along
the blade leading surface and falls back to the surface
due to gravity. On the horizontal cut planes, the liquid
Figure 14. Streamlines and contour of liquid volume fraction which is ejected moves as a logarithmic spiral. The
in vertical cross-section. dominating part of the free surface changes slightly
after 0.5 s. There is also slight liquid-level fluctuation at
Figure 15(c) shows the changes of the surface around the wall of the aeration tank when the time is between
the aerator running at 0.25 s. It reveals that during this 0.5 and 1 s, hence obvious fluctuation occurs in the free
period there is a process of discharging the liquid above surface. Although the surface deformation and velocity

Figure 15. Velocity fields in isosurface of gas–liquid interface at different times: (a) t = 0 s, (b) t = 0.125 s, (c) t = 0.25 s, (d) t = 0.5 s,
(e) t = 0.75 s, (f) t = 1 s, (g) t = 1.25 s, (h) t = 1.5 s, and (i) t = 1.75 s.
Dong et al. 11

Figure 16. Contours of turbulent kinetic energy at different depths at 1.75 s in horizontal cross sections: (a) z = 180 mm,
(b) z = 170 mm, (c) z = 150 mm, (d) z = 130 mm, (e) z = 100 mm, and (f) z = 50 mm.

near the impeller have little changes, the fluctuating of larger, which indicates that the liquid is prone to gener-
the free surface near the impeller spreads to the walls. ate impact, whirlpool or reflow, and causes turbulence
Figure 15(g)–(i) displays free-surface deformations in of the liquid in arbitrary directions. In addition, the
time from 1.25 to 1.75 s. As it can be seen from the fig- action range of impeller gradually reduces with the
ure, the fluctuations are drastic. The reason is that the depth increasing and so does the turbulence intensity.
aeration tank is a circular space, the liquid flows to the The depth 130 mm is a watershed, below which there is
wall at a certain velocity under the action of the rota- little turbulent kinetic energy. It can be concluded that
tion. The fluid is constrained by the walls, then a por- the shallow liquid gets the most energy, generates the
tion of the liquid flips due to impact force with hitting strongest turbulence, and oxygen mass transfer also
the wall. The other portion of the liquid flows along the mainly occurs in this layer.
wall and flows toward the aerator under the action of
the centripetal force. When the reflux collides to the
liquid that diffuses toward the wall, the surface fluctua- Conclusion
tion turns drastic. At the same time, it can be found
that the shape of the free surface and the velocity near Based on the high-speed photography technique and
the impeller are basically stable between 1.25 and 1.75 s. CFD modeling, the free-surface deformation in the
The free-surface deformation away from the impeller aeration tank driven by the inverted-umbrella aerator
hardly changes. is studied. The deformation pattern of the free surface
as well as the evolution of the internal flow field and
the flow pattern are analyzed. The following conclu-
Analysis of turbulence sions are obtained:
Turbulent kinetic energy is one of the most important
variables because it is a measure of the intensity of tur- 1. The free-surface deformation, which is obtained
bulence. The greater the turbulent kinetic energy, the by numerical simulation, agrees well with the
more intense the turbulence of the liquid is. According results of high speed-photography. Therefore,
to the theory of surface renewal model of oxygen mass the CFD model used in this study can predict
transfer, the increase of turbulent kinetic energy can surface fluctuation with reasonable accuracy.
accelerate the update of interface and shorten the resi- The relative pressure of the blade leading surface
dence time of the surface, which can increase the oxy- is higher than the trailing surface. The trailing
gen mass transfer coefficient. Figure 16 shows the surface appears in obvious low-pressure area,
turbulent kinetic energy contours of the cross-section which can directly carry air into the water and
of the aeration tank at different depths under stable enhance aeration and oxygenation capacity.
operating condition. It can be seen from the figure that 2. The working process of the inverted-umbrella
the turbulent kinetic energy close to the impeller is aerator can be divided into three stages. At first
12 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

stage, the liquid above the plate is discharged China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M611721); the
through the impeller rotation, and the liquid association innovation fund of production, learning, and
surface deformation first appears above the research (BY2016072-01); Zhenjiang key research and devel-
impeller. Then, the liquid goes into the upper opment plan (GY2017001, GY2018025); the Open Research
side of the plate through the gap of the impeller, Subject of Key Laboratory of Fluid and Power Machinery,
Ministry of Education, Xihua University (szjj2017-094,
and the deformed free surface is moved toward
szjj2016-068); Sichuan Provincial Key Lab of Process
the wall. Finally, the whole surface fluctuates in Equipment and Control (GK201614, GK201816); the
the tank. The circulation whirlpool under the Advanced Talent Foundation of Jiangsu University
free surface corresponds to the surface change. (15JDG052); and a project funded by the Priority Academic
The circulation whirlpool first appears at the Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education
bottom of the impeller and moves obliquely Institutions (PAPD), Jiangsu top six talent summit project
along the lower side of the blade. (GDZB-017).
3. The liquid at the bottom of the aeration tank is
gathered on the impeller axis direction. The ORCID iDs
liquid moves up to the impeller field with the
action of the impeller lifting capacity, and the Liang Dong https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0678-4382
Dmitry Vladimirovich Gradov https://orcid.org/0000-00
streamline direction at the bottom of the aera-
03-4222-0354
tion tank is clockwise. The circulation whirl-
pool, created by impeller motion, appears at the
outer edge of the impeller initially and moves References
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