Numerical investigation of the hydrocyclone vortex finder depth on separation efficiency

Abstract

Hydrocyclones are devices used in numerous chemicals, food, and mineral-related industrial sectors for the separation of fine particles. A d50 mm hydrocyclone was modelled with the use of the Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation, ANSYS® Fluent 2021 R1. The vortex finder depth was varied from 20 mm, 30 mm, and 35 mm to observe the effects of pressure drop and separation efficiency from a varied vortex finder depth and characteristics of the air core. The numerical methods validated the results observed from different parameters such as volume fraction characteristics based on CFD simulations. The tangential and axial velocities increased as the vortex finder length increased. It was found that as the depth of the vortex finder is increased, particle re-entrainment time in the underflow stream increases, and separation efficiency improved.