Sunday, January 22, 2017

Update 100 to feature enhanced DynoChem vessel mixing and heat transfer utilities

Later this month we will make our 100th round of updates to tools and content in the DynoChem Resources website, so that these are available immediately to all of our users worldwide.  It's appropriate that this 'century' of enhancements is marked by a major release of improved vessel mixing and heat transfer utilities, a cornerstone of scale-up and tech transfer for pharmaceutical companies.

We are grateful to the many users and companies who have contributed requests and ideas for these tools and we have delivered many of these in the 2017 release of the utilities. Ten of the new features are listed below, with a 'shout out' to some customers and great collaborators who led, requested or helped:

Power per unit mass (W/kg) design space for lab reactor;
to produce these results, hundreds of operating conditions are simulated within seconds.
 
Power per unit mass (W/kg) design space for plant reactor;
to produce these results, hundreds of operating conditions are simulated within seconds.
Design space may be generated with one click on Results tab; 
hundreds of operating conditions are simulated within seconds.
  1. A new Design space feature has been included in several utilities that calculates process results over a user-defined range of impeller speed and liquid volume.  Hundreds of operating conditions are simulated within seconds.  When applied to both Vessel 1 and Vessel 2, this allows identification of a range of operating conditions in each vessel that lead to similar calculated mixing parameters.  Design space buttons are available on the Results worksheets and produce tables and response surface plots. [with thanks to Andrew Derrick, Pfizer] 
  2. We have enhanced Vessel 1 and Vessel 2 Reports, including the user’s name, the date and the version number of the utility.  Reports now also contain individual impeller power numbers, UA intercept and UA(v) where applicable. [with thanks to Roel Hoefnagels, J&J]
  3. We have extended our standard list of impellers, including the two-bladed flat paddle and a marine propeller [with thanks to Ramakanth Chitguppa, Dr Reddys]
  4. Users can now name, include and define multiple custom/user-defined impellers on the Impeller properties tab; vessel database custodians can define a custom impeller list for use across an organization. [with thanks to Ben Cohen and colleagues, BMS]
  5. Users can easily import their organization’s vessel database (including custom impellers) from a file on the network, Intranet or web site.  This means that all users can apply the latest utilities from DynoChem Resources and there is no need for power users / custodians to make separate copies of the utilities and share them for internal use. [with thanks to Dan Caspi, Abbvie]
    One click imports the organization's vessel database and custom impellers
  6. Unbaffled Power number estimates have been enhanced and made a function of Reynolds number.
  7. We have added calculation of an estimate of the maximum power per unit mass generated by impellers in a vessel, based on calculations related to the trailing vortex produced by the blades. [thanks to Ben Cohen, BMS, Andrew Derrick, Pfizer and Richard Grenville, formerly DuPont]
  8. We have added calculation of torque per unit volume, a parameter sometimes used in systems with higher viscosity and by agitator vendors.
  9. We have added the Grenville, Mak and Brown (GMB) correlation as an alternative to Zwietering for solids suspension with axial and mixed flow impellers [with thanks to Aaron Sarafinas, Dow].
    The Grenville Mak and Brown correlation is a new alternative to Zwietering
  10.  Some worksheets are partially protected to prevent unintended edits by users.  There is no password and protection can be removed using Review>Unprotect sheet.

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