NUMERICAL STUDY OF GAS-PHASE FLOW IN A CYCLONE SEPARATOR

To investigate separation efficiency of a cyclone separator at different operating parameters, in this paper we use Fluent software to numerically study the three dimensional gas-solid two-phase flows in the cyclone separator. The present work mainly consists four parts. Firstly we investigates the accuracy of different turbulent models including the standard k-[Formula: see text] model, RNG k-[Formula: see text] model, Realizable k-[Formula: see text] model and Reynolds stress equation model (RSM), and finds that the RSM turbulence model gives a good comparison between the numerical results and the experimental results. Secondly, the gas phase flow rate, pressure, and turbulent distribution in the cyclone separator are explored numerically in detail with the RSM model. Thirdly, on the base of the gas flow results, gas-solid two phase flows in the cyclone separator are studied by coupling the random trajectory model in the Lagrangian coordinates so that the particle trajectories in separator are displayed. Finally, effects of particle size and velocity at the cyclone separator inlet on the separation efficiency are analyzed. Numerical results show that when the particle velocity is higher and particle size is larger at the inlet, the separation efficiency is better. However, when the particle velocity and size approach their threshold values, the separation efficiency will not change.