Visualization of Mixing Process in a Cell Mixer Agitated by a Piezoelectric Vibrating Stirrer

The mixing process in a cell mixer by a piezoelectric vibrating actuator as a stirrer was visualized by means of a dye-tracer method and was pictured using a video camera. The local concentration of dye was transformed to a gray scale using an image processing technique. The quantitative information on 2D mixing process as well as the flow pattern were deduced and discussed by the image processing. The time variation in the probability density function of gray scale for the whole area as well as the time variation in the local gray scale were also discussed.