Following performance of solid particle and liquid phases inside a hydrocyclone

ABSTRACT

The following performance between solid particle and liquid phases inside a hydrocyclone remains unclear. The purpose of this paper was to study the following pattern of solid-liquid phases in a hydrocyclone, and to explore the influencing factors affecting solid-liquid followability. Numerical simulation of the effects of seven particle sizes, two particle concentrations and two feed rates on solid-liquid followability were performed. The results from the simulation show that in the axial and tangential directions, the relative velocity difference between the particles and the liquid flow is almost zero. Thus, the followability of the particles and the liquid flow is very good and is not affected by the particle size, concentration or feed rate. In the radial direction, the particle size, particle concentration, and the feed rate have a great impact on the followability of the particle and liquid flows. The followability of particle flow and liquid flow is lower at larger particle size, lower slurry concentration, and higher feed rate. This indicates that the separation of the particles from the liquid flow is easier when the particle size is large, the slurry concentration is low, or the feed rate is high.

KEYWORDS:

• Hydrocyclone
• separation performance
• solid-liquid two phase flow
• CFD

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, China (ZR2020ME105)