Abstract
A stirred-tank reactor is used for a unit operation in many fields of chemical processes, such as for mixing, heating, cooling and chemical reaction. Then the heat and mass transfer characteristics significantly depend on the flow structure induced by a rotor in the tank. In order to design high performance equipments, it is essential to identify and to optimize the flow structure. Aiming at further development of such stirred-tank reactor, flow visualization study was conducted on the structure of mixed convection due to a forced convective motion by the rotor and natural convective motion by heating and cooling.