Despite its importance in chemical industries, there are few works which st
udies anchor type impellers and only a fraction of the works investigate th
ese systems under a computational approach. The great majority refers to tu
rbine impellers, specially Rushton turbines, under turbulent now. Anchor im
pellers are used specially for highly viscous flow, typical of polymer reac
tions. The viscosity is normally in the range 1000-10000 cp. Since this ran
ge of viscosity describe highly viscous flows, the reactions for anchor agi
tated systems are normally carried out under laminar flow. This work presen
ts a detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach to study the beha
viour of stirred vessels using anchor impellers. The axial plane of the tan
k, which is being modelled, is divided into small control volumes, which co
llectively is referred to as the mesh, ol grid. In each of these cells the
momentum balance, energy and mass conservation, which describes the model,
are rewritten algebraically using the finite volumes method to relate such
variables as velocity, pressure and temperature to values in neighbouring c
ells. The equations are then solved numerically, and the results yield the
now corresponding to the model. Since the geometry of a vessel with anchor
impellers strictly calls for a three dimensional method, an approximation i
s made to account for the effect of the blades (Kuncewics, 1992). The main
objective of this work is to give a detailed description of the flow genera
ted by this axial impeller with a view to indicate ways in which the design
and operation of these systems can be improved.