Adiabatic Mixing

The mixing of several streams of fluid is quite common in engineering practice. The process can usually be assumed to occur adiabatically. Mixing process is highly irreversible because of eddying of fluid streams. Consider the steady-flow system shown in figure above. If the changes of kinetic energy are negligible, then the law of conservation of energy gives:

or in general,

and the law of conservation of mass gives:

or in general,

where m and h represent mass flow and specific enthalpy of the fluids.