Effect of static mixer geometry on flow mixing and pressure drop in marine SCR applications

Flow mixing and pressure drop characteristics for marine selective catalytic reduction applications were investigated numerically to develop an efficient static mixer. Two different mixers, line- and swirl-type, were considered. The effect of vane angles on the relative intensity, uniformity index, and pressure drop was investigated in a swirl-type mixer; these parameters are dramatically affected by the mixer geometry. The presence of a mixer, regardless of the mixer type, led to an improvement of approximately 20% in the mixing performance behind the mixer in comparison to not having a mixer. In particular, there was a tradeoff relationship between the uniformity and the pressure drop. Considering the mixing performance and the pressure drop, the swirl-type mixer was more suitable than the line-type mixer in this study.