Physical investigations have been carried out to characterize the power consumption in a laboratory autoclave vessel equipped with an anchor impeller (diameter d = 0.068 mm), without baffles, at 8 speed ratio, from 100 to 800 rpm. The laminar flow regime was investigated using sludge proceeding from the treatment of mixed industrial and domestic wastewater, with a view to its subsequent processing: mixing, filtration, dewatering. The mathematical modeling focused on finding an accurate equation linking the Power number (Np) and the Reynolds number (Re) at different levels (H) of sludge in the vessel.
The rheological curves indicate that the sludge have non-Newtonian behaviors which are better described by the Herschel-Buckley model