Fluid Force on Tank Baffle Plates

[structuralecstasy]

Hello,

I am looking for a good reference for hand calculation of fluid forces acting on baffle plates for a tank with 4 mixers. I have read in several places that there are a couple of approaches to determining the baffle plate loads. This involves using either the torque/power input from the mixers or using the fluid velocity, presumably from a CFD, unless there is a way to calculate it based on the mixer tip velocity. I just can't find any formulas online for estimating these loads. Thanks for any help.

 

[JStephen]

I noticed at one of the trade shows, one of the mixer manufacturers had artwork from a CFD analysis showing how their mixer was better than the other guy's. This suggests that the mixer manufacturers might be a good place to start for this kind of information.

I also seem to recall that in Boundary Layer Methods class, the analysis of a jet impinging on a flat plate was one of the classic problems considered. If your geometry is such that you can approximate it as this case, you can perhaps find a ready-made solution in a textbook or reference book dealing with the topic.

On the mixer company's CFD artwork, I believe one of the points they were pushing was that their mixer made a less diffused flow- ie, more focused stream- which would be one thing to consider in dealing with the BLM solution.

 

[IFRs]

"When a jet of water strikes a flat plate perpendicularly to its surface, the force exerted by the water on the plate is wv/g, where w is the weight of water striking the plate in a unit of time and v is the velocity" (Marks Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, ninth edition, page 3-22)