Friday, July 23, 2010

The Mixers

Each of the mixers have had a stainless steel jacket welded on. The mixers are used to heat up the milk and are actually very similar to pasteurization machines used in commercial dairies. The each have two spouts--one for water/steam to enter, and one to exit. The general idea is to have steam enter on the left-side where it then circles around and exits through the right. Dr. O'Leary explained to me that there are two basic kinds of fluid flow--laminar and turbulent (the more effective kind). These spouts on these two mixers are at different distances apart, and the mixer on the left actually heats up about 30% faster than the other because the angle the exit spout creates on the left mixer allows steam to exit more quickly so that hotter steam can enter. If you look closely you can see that the tubing on each of the spouts has been clamped to help keep it from falling off when the steam is at such a high pressure (earlier in the week we hadn't been using clamps and one of the tubes came off and sprayed us both with steam and hot water, which was not cool).

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