Mixing vessels are widely used for blending and chemical reactions. Although much has been done on mixing processes, the complex, three-dimensional flow phenomena are still not well understood. The purpose of the first step in this research is to obtain the experimental data for validation of simulation and validation of time-resolved, three-dimensional velocity vector data. Such results are an essential part of the design of mixing systems. Our current mixing investigations have been carried out experimentally in order to examine the turbulent flow of the opposed jet reactor. The inlets are laminar at Reynolds number of 2,000. A particle tracking velocimeter (PTV) was utilized in this research. The spatial resolution was improved over our previous system by four (684x484 pixels) and at the same time the time resolution was improved to 60 Hz (although in this work the temporal resolution was 30 Hz). By using two synchronized video cameras (master and slave), two PC computers could be used to analyze the experimental velocity vector data and discover the mixing characteristics of the opposed jet reactor.
After obtaining the stereoscopically flow field images, the minimum number (11) of average frames was determined and the two-dimensional, dynamic movies of three views (front, top, and side) could then be used to describe the dynamic characteristics. In addition to the dynamic movies, the long time (36,000 averaged images) and the instantaneous characteristics will be addressed. The final part of the analysis of the experimental data is to determine an initial condition for the subsequent computational efforts. This initial condition needs to satisfy continuity by determination of the ∂Ux/∂x term from the continuity equation. The term can also be established by using Taylor’s hypothesis. Thus the continuity equation evaluation and using Taylor’s hypothesis will be compared.