Development of a vibration sensor-based tool for online detection of roping in small-diameter hydrocyclones

ABSTRACT

An attempt has been made to develop a non-intrusive and robust technique for online detection of roping in hydrocyclones using commercially available vibration-based sensors. A 50.8 mm diameter hydrocyclone was operated with two different silica slurry size distributions till roping was achieved in the underflow. Vibration signals were captured simultaneously at the spigot region for various operating conditions. Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) was applied to the raw vibration signal for extracting Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF) within the frequency range of the natural frequency of the hydrocyclone. Subsequently, Power Spectral Density (PSD) and frequency spectrum were computed along the axial direction. The Grms (square root of the area under PSD) and peak frequency values were found to be different for the spray and rope discharge which were used for detecting roping conditions. The differences were considered to be associated with the changes in the axial velocity fluctuations of the air core at the spigot region. Further, a flowchart has been proposed based on the methodology suggested in this work, which has the potential for online detection of roping in the hydrocyclone.

KEYWORDS:

• Vibration monitoring
• hydrocyclone
• roping
• online monitoring
• Empirical mode decomposition
• Power spectral density

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.