Numerical Simulation of a Pipeline Tee Mixer

Pipeline tee mixing quality has been computed with a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code. In particular, the {kappa}-{epsilon} model has been used to calculate the second moment of an inert tracer downstream from the tee mixer. The range of values covered for the steady, single phase, turbulent flow are a jet-to-pipe diameter ratio of 0.026 < d/D < 0.36 and velocity ratio 2 < UIV < 10. The results indicate that the turbulent model successfully correlates existing data and suggests a small adjustment to an existing similarity solution. Examples of specific applications for pipeline tees are low viscosity mixing such as the dilution of concentrated acids or bases, wastewater treatment, or blending petrochemical products. Gas mixing applications are the blending of fuel gases, mixing of feed streams for catalytic reactors, and mixing hot flue gases with ambient air.