Effect of the Position of Overflow Pipe with Mixed Spiral Structures on the Separation Performance of Hydrocyclones

Abstract

Overflow pipes are important components of hydrocyclones. The overflow products can carry huge amounts of residual energy when being discharged. In order to take full advantage of the residual energy and enhance hydrocyclone separation performance, this research designed a novel hydrocyclone by adding static mixing units with spiral elements in the overflow pipe. This study performed numerical simulations to investigate the effects of the install position of the spiral structure on the separation performance and inner flow field of the hydrocyclone. It can be concluded that both tangential velocity and pressure are first enhanced and then reduced by the elevation of the spiral structure. When the spiral structure is installed 30 mm away from the overflow pipe bottom, because of the hindrance of spiral elements, the discharge of coarse particles with the overflow are fully decreased and the quality of overflow products are enhanced.

Keywords

• hydrocyclone
• spiral structure
• numerical simulations
• separation performance