Large-eddy simulation of turbulent flow in an unbaffled stirred tank driven by a Rushton turbine

The turbulent flow field generated in an unbaffled stirred tank by a Rushton turbine was computed by large-eddy simulation (LES). The Smagorinsky model was used to model the unresolved, or sub-grid, scales. A general purpose CFD code was appropriately modified in order to allow the computation of the sub-grid viscosity and to perform statistics on the computed results. The numerical predictions were compared with the literature results for comparable configurations and with experimental data obtained using particle image velocimetry. A very good agreement was found as regards both time-averaged resolved fields and turbulence quantities.