Fluid flow and stresses on microcarriers in spinner flask bioreactors

The paper presents a validated CFD model for the flow in a bench-scale spinner flask that features a centrally-located magnet-driven impeller. Model development found that use of the immersed solid mesh method resulted in better correspondence with observations and μPIV measurements than the more established sliding mesh method in ANSYS-CFX. Analysis of spatial distributions suggested stresses and turbulence in a bench-scale stirredflask bioreactor featuring vertical outer-wall baffles were of a magnitude which could result in inhibited growth due to cell damage if the angular velocity was high enough, even when the magnitude of the Reynolds number indicated that the flow was barely turbulent.