Analysis of Turbulent Mixing Jets in a Large Scale Tank

Flow evolution models were developed to evaluate the performance of the new advanced design mixer pump for sludge mixing and removal operations with high-velocity liquid jets in one of the large-scale Savannah River Site waste tanks, Tank 18. This paper describes the computational model, the flow measurements used to provide validation data in the region far from the jet nozzle, and the extension of the computational results to real tank conditions through the use of existing sludge suspension data. A computational fluid dynamics approach was used to simulate the sludge removal operations. The models employed a three-dimensional representation of the tank with a two-equation turbulence model. Both the computational approach and the models were validated with onsite test data reported here and literature data. The model was then extended to actual conditions in Tank 18 through a velocity criterion to predict the ability of the new pump design to suspend settled sludge. A qualitative comparison with sludge removal operations in Tank 18 showed a reasonably good comparison with final results subject to significant uncertainties in actual sludge properties.