AIChE Journal, Vol.48, No.8, 1621-1630, 2002
Experiments on chaotic mixing in a screw channel flow
Mixing patterns of a passive dye were investigated experimentally in an unwound screw channel flow with periodic barriers that serve to induce a chaotic flow. Continuous cross-sectional and longitudinal mixing patterns were observed as a function of the barrier fraction and were interpreted in terms of dynamical systems theory, along with 3-D numerical simulations. Observations include: periodically invariant cross-sectional mixing patterns due to the resonance bands; pile-up of dye streaks caused by stretching and folding of manifolds near hyperbolic points; unmixed zones due to KAM tori; longitudinal deformation patterns with exit time distributions; and effects of the barrier fraction on the size of unmixed islands, the thickness of the band of dye streaks, and the distribution of exit times.