Performance analysis of coaxial shear static mixer for hydrogen blending into natural gas

Blending a specific proportion of hydrogen into a natural gas (NG) pipeline network is an effective strategy for achieving long-distance, large-scale, and cost-effective hydrogen transport. Static mixers played a crucial role in this process. In this study, a coaxial shear static mixer with ring-shaped structures instead of turbulence elements is proposed. The mixer exhibited favorable mixing performance and low pressure loss. The flow characteristics of NG and hydrogen within the mixer were investigated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. The effects of the number of cavities, hydrogen pipe diameter, hydrogen blending ratio and pressure on the mixer performances were investigated, taking into account both mixing uniformity and pressure loss. When the number of cavities in the coaxial shear mixer increases to 48, the mixing uniformity reaches 95.43% (SMX is 95%), and the pressure loss is 67.02 Pa (SMX is 500 Pa).