Formation of heart‐shaped cavern model in stirring pseudoplastic fluid with the impeller of perturbed six‐bend‐blade turbine

Abstract The cavern characteristics of xanthan gum solution stirred with the impeller of perturbed six‐bend‐blade turbine (6PBT impeller) were studied based on CFD laminar flow model. The heart‐shaped cavern model was presented for predicting the cavern development accurately, and the predicted results were made a contrastive analysis with that of other existing cavern models. Results showed that the calculated values agreed well with the data measured by PIV, which validated the laminar flow model. The correction coefficient k = 0.64 is more suitable to revise the characteristic parameter a in the equation of the heart‐shaped cavern model. As a result, the heart‐shaped model always keeps high prediction accuracy at the cavern boundary. The cavern boundary curves predicted by the heart‐shaped model are in good agreement with the results of CFD simulation, and the cavern development along the axial height can be also realistically exhibited. The heart‐shaped cavern model will contribute to increase the prediction accuracy of cavern development.