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4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
Geoff D. Moggridge
Ian Wilson
University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE
Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3RA, UK
Premier Foods, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP12 3QR, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 23 November 2010
Received in revised form 14 February 2011
Accepted 20 February 2011
Available online 24 February 2011
Keywords:
Kenwood
Hobart
Planetary mixer
Shear rate
a b s t r a c t
The shear rate experienced by a uid near the wall of a planetary mixer when agitated by a wire whisk
tool has been estimated using a simple geometrical analysis. The bowl and whisk geometries were measured for a Kenwood KM250 and a Hobart N50 mixer which are in widespread use in domestic and laboratory installations. The shear rate is shown to be a maximum at the bowl wall. This value is relatively
uniform over a large fraction of the wall height, except for a small volume near the base and the region
above the maximum width of the mixer. The shear rate prole is sensitive to the vertical positioning of
the agitator within the bowl. For standard manufacturer speed settings, the range of maximum shear
rates was estimated to be 100-500 s1 in the Hobart and 20100 s1 in the Kenwood.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Mixing is a key step in many manufacturing processes as this is
used both to combine ingredients and to generate microstructure.
Understanding the impact of processes such as mixing on product
structure is essential for process improvement and the effect can
be quantied by determining rheological properties (Cullen and
ODonnell, 2009). Industrial processing can involve a wide range
of shear regimes (Table 1): it is therefore important to know the
magnitude and range of shear rates experienced by the material
during mixing for (i) relating results from different types of mixer
(e.g. in comparing results from different laboratories), (ii) scaling
up from laboratory to factory scales, and (iii) determining the relevant range of shear rates for rheological measurement.
Planetary mixers are often used in domestic, laboratory and
industrial applications to prepare food and other soft solid materials. To our knowledge the shear rates developed in these devices
have not been quantied. Rotational and beater tip speeds are
reported but these are not direct indicators of shear rate. We report
an approximate method for calculating representative shear
rates generated in two widely-used laboratory mixers (namely a
Kenwood KM250 and a Hobart N50 mixer).
Our particular interest lies in the preparation of cake batters,
where planetary mixers are widely used to combine solid and liquid ingredients to form a liquid matrix and then to incorporate
air by vigorous mixing. In a companion paper (Chesterton et al.,
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1223 334 791; fax: +44 1223 331 796.
E-mail address: Ian_wilson@cheng.cam.ac.uk (D.I. Wilson).
0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2011.02.044
2011) the information on shear rates is used to inform an investigation of the development of structure in aerated cake batters.
1.1. Planetary mixing
Planetary mixers are batch devices which use a characteristic
whisking motion created by two simultaneous rotations. This
arrangement allows the entire mixed volume to receive a vigorous
beating action and ensures efcient mixing whilst minimising agitator diameter, and avoiding high specic power consumption and
temperature rises (Niranjan et al., 1994). Planetary mixing is popular in many industrial applications, particularly within the pharmaceutical and food industries, as it is a reliable and robust way
of homogeneously mixing solidliquid systems (Hiseman et al.,
2002). It is also commonly used in laboratory studies and domestic
applications, as the volume of material can be varied readily and
the progress of mixing monitored visually. Bakeries often use planetary type vertical mixers for the preparation of sponge batters.
Many development or test bakeries use this type of machine to develop a product even though a continuous machine might be used
for production purposes (Cauvain and Cyster, 1996).
Scaling up mixing processes from small scale batch studies to
larger devices with different geometries remains a major challenge
in mixing and powder technology (Delaplace et al., 2007). Classical
measures of mixing performance such as modied power numbers
and Reynolds numbers have been reported (e.g. Delaplace et al.,
2005) but the difculty lies in linking mechanical action to
micro-scale attributes such as distribution of components (e.g. in
solids mixing) or development of microstructure in the materials
344
Nomenclature
A
B
C
D
HA
Hh
Hk
r
R
t
VD
x, y
z
Table 1
Typical food processes and their associated shear regimes.a
b
a
Xr
XR
hr
hR
d
c_ w
Subscripts
k
Kenwood mixer
h
Hobart mixer
345
Fig. 1. Photographs of (a) Kenwood and (b) Hobart planetary mixer balloon-whisk agitator tools.
was used to plot the bowl and whisk proles and used to measure
the minimum gap distances by use of the softwares circle tool and
radius calculator.
Table 2
Rotation and revolution rates for each mixer speed setting.
Setting
Min
1
2
3
4
5
6
Max
a
b
c
Kenwood
Rotation a Xr/
rpm
Revolutionb
XR/rpm
Hobart
Rotationc Xr/
rpm
Revolutiona
XR/rpm
32
53
66
84
99
128
154
165
105
175
220
280
330
425
515
550
61
125
259
200
410
849
Calculated.
Measured.
Provided by manufacturer.
346
z
rk
Hk
Rk
A
HA
60 mm
z
rh
Hh
Rh
A
HA
60 mm
Fig. 2. Bowl and whisk proles: (a) Kenwood (Hk = 155 mm, HA = 70 mm,
Rk = 48.5 mm, rk = 28 mm) and (b) Hobart (Hh = 170 mm, HA = 90 mm, Rh = 64.5 mm,
rh = 30 mm). C denotes the orbital axis of rotation about the bowl, B the axis of
rotation of the revolving whisk and A is the point of maximum diameter on the
whisk prole, located at height HA.
The ratio XR/Xr remains constant for each speed setting, dependent
on the device gear ratio.
The whisk radius, R, varies with height, resulting in a range of
motion patterns and velocities within the bowl. The trajectory calculated for the Kenwood device at Rk = 37.5 mm (i.e. near the maximum, point A, Fig. 2) is illustrated in Fig. 4. The locus describes a
series of 10 loops due to the gearing ratio (10/3) after which the
pattern repeats itself. This result matches experimental observations exactly. Image Fig. 4d) was obtained by attaching an LED to
the whisk at Rk = 37.5 mm and photographing the moving device
in a darkened room with a 15 s extended exposure time.
The gearing ratio for the Hobart device (59/18) results in a 59
loop repeating pattern, as shown in Fig. 5. This calculated pattern
(Fig. 5a) also matches the experimental result (Fig. 5b), acquired
by tracing the trajectory by use of a pen adhered vertically to the
whisk perimeter.
Fig. 6 shows the calculated trajectories for 20 mm intervals between vertical heights z = 1090 mm for each mixer. At the base
(R = 0, data not reported) the whisk tip traces a circle as there is
no contribution from XR. As the whisk diameter, R, increases from
z = 0 with height, the contribution from XR becomes more pronounced causing larger loops in the trajectory. The loops intersect
more often as the height above the base increases. The pattern at
z = 70 mm corresponds to the maximum diameter of the Kenwood
attachment (Rk = 48.5 mm) after which the diameter reduces, and
similar trajectories to those observed at smaller diameters repeat.
The Hobart whisk maximum diameter is located at z = 90 mm
(Rh = 64.5 mm). These trajectories, which resemble Lissajous gures, are similar to those reported for PEPT studies by Hiseman
et al. (2002) and Laurent (2005).
The whisk perimeter experiences a non-constant velocity when
tracing the described patterns. The local linear speed can be obtained from differentiation of Eq. (1) with respect to time, which
yields:
q
V D 2p XR Xr 2 R2 X2r r 2 2Xr XR Xr rR cos2pXR t
1a
1b
where Xr is the whisk shaft rotational speed about the bowl centre,
XR is the rotational speed of the whisk about its shaft, and t is time.
c_ w
VD
d
347
Fig. 4. Trajectories calculated for a point on the circumference of the Kenwood whisk attachment at Rk = 47.5 mm and Xr = 165 rpm after (a) 0.2 s, (b) 0.4 s, and (c) 1.1 s.
Numbers indicate the order of loops traced. (d) Time-lapse photograph collected over 15 s of a small LED attached to the whisk perimeter. Axes scales in mm.
(a)
(b)
100
50
0
-100
-50
50
100
-50
-100
Fig. 5. Hobart mixer trajectory: (a) Plan view of the calculated trajectory for a point on the agitator perimeter at R = 60.0 mm showing a cycle of 59 loops. Axis dimensions in
mm. (b) Trace of corresponding point obtained by attaching a pen to the whisk perimeter.
designed or evolved with experience to deliver this even distribution is not known, but the result explains why these devices have
proven to deliver robust performance.
The form of the wall shear rate distributions do not alter with
rotational speed (Fig. 7b). The wall shear rate values experienced
at most heights of the mixer are 100 s1 for the Kenwood at its
maximum speed and 500 s1 for the Hobart at speed setting 3.
Specic attention is given to these speeds (1, 3, max) due to their
relevance to cake baking, where speed setting 1 is used by both
mixers to homogenise the ingredients, and speed setting 3
(Hobart) and maximum speed (Kenwood) to aerate the batter.
These values lie comfortably within the range reported for mixing
348
(b)
(a)
80
80
R = 62.8 mm
70
R = 48.5 mm
70
60
60
50
40
30
R = 56.5 mm
50
R = 45.3 mm
z / mm
z / mm
R = 64.5 mm
90
R = 46 mm
90
40
R = 45 mm
30
R = 39 mm
20
20
10
R = 24.3 mm
10
R = 27 mm
0
100
100
50
50
0
0
-50
50
50
0
0
-50
-50
-100
y / mm
100
100
-50
-100
-100
x / mm
y / mm
-100
x / mm
Fig. 6. Trajectories of ve points on the whisk perimeter for (a) Kenwood and (b) Hobart devices at z = 10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 mm (corresponding R values marked). The
location of largest R is shown for each mixer; Rk = 48.5 mm and Rh = 64.5 mm.
Fig. 7. Estimated wall shear rate at (a) speed setting 1, and (b) maximum speed, for Kenwood (solid grey symbols) and Hobart (open black symbols) mixers with balloon
whisk attachment. Interpolated lines between data points are added to guide the eye. One noticeable outlier exists for the Hobart mixer, at z = 25 mm: this is a measurement
artefact. Horizontal lines show ll levels when the bowl is lled with the homogenised ingredients (slurry) and aerated batter (foam) for the Kenwood mixer (grey) and the
Hobart mixer (black). Clearance at base = 2 mm.
Kenwood c_ w /s1
Hobart c_ w /s1
Min
1
2
3
4
5
6
Max
20
30
3540
4050
5070
7090
80120
90120
100120
210250
450500
349
Fig. 8. Calculated wall shear rate proles for the Kenwood mixer for different
values of whisk-bowl clearance, at the maximum rotational speed. Horizontal lines
indicate ll level for slurry (dotted line) and for aerated batter (dashed line).
Fig. 9. Variation in shear rate for one revolution (one rotation of the whisk about
axis B (Fig. 1) calculated for a point on the Hobart whisk perimeter (D, Fig. 1) at
z = 60 mm. The peak shear rate is located at the origin (0 rad), at which point D is at
its closest to the bowl wall. Conditions: clearance 2 mm, maximum speed.
350
but its validity is not certain near the base where the curvature is
greater (and the 3D analysis was not performed). The latter region
represents a relatively small volume if the bowl is lled to a height
of 50 mm or greater: the latter value is suggested as a minimal level of ll for the devices employed here.
The distributions of shear rate with height obtained for two
commonly used laboratory scale devices, namely a Kenwood
KM250 and a Hobart N60 mixer, were found have a similar form.
The shear rates imposed at the wall were near uniform for the
majority of the wetted bowl region, despite the whisk speed and
wall gap both being a function of height within the bowl. The range
in shear rates achievable with the Kenwood was 20100 s1, while
the corresponding range for the Hobart was 100500 s1.
Acknowledgements
A Food Processing Faraday studentship for AKSC is gratefully
acknowledged, as is funding and technical support from Premier
Foods.
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