Power consumption of multiple shaft agitators

Abstract For highly viscous products, multiple shaft agitators represent an interesting alternative to expensive special mixers. A triple shaft agitator with a volume of 250 liters is used to determine the powder consumption of the impellers and its relationship with the process parameters. The result shows that the power consumption of a single impeller running in multiple shaft mode is significantly smaller than of one running in single shaft mode. But the power required for the whole multiple shaft machine is much higher than that for a single shaft machine. A model is presented for detailed description of the interactions between the individual agitators in multiple shaft mode.