Recovering deterministic behavior from experimental time series in mixing reactor

Abstract

Abstract The velocity field in a standard mixing reactor with a Rushton impeller is analyzed by using techniques from the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. It is shown that the dynamical behavior contains a quasi‐periodic motion with three frequencies, f p , the frequency associated with the rotation of blades, f p /6, and a third frequency f'. Relying on an evaluation of the correlation dimension equal to 3.9, the phase space is likely to be at least four‐dimensional. Moreover, a set of four ordinary differential equations is indeed automatically obtained by using a global vector field reconstruction technique, confirming the existence of a 4–D‐deterministic behavior contributing to the dynamics of the system.