Determination of In-line process viscosity using static mixers

A method to evaluate the process viscosity in a pipe (In-line viscosity) was developed for rheologically complex fluids using the measurement of pressure drop through two consecutive static mixers. The static mixing system was first characterized by determining the classical K-p and K-s constants for each static mixer with Newtonian and power law fluids. The performance of the method was then tested in ail industrial environment. Results show that the proposed approach can be successfully used to monitor process Viscosity Under industrial conditions. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.