Development of scale-up enabling technique using constant temperature anemometry for turbulence measurement in flotation cells

Abstract

The success of flotation scale-up depends on understanding of the hydrodynamic condition of flotation cells at different scales and design specifications. In order to achieve this, it is very important to measure hydrodynamic parameters such as fluid velocity, turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate (TKEDR) in flotation cells. There are many methods that are available to measure velocity and velocity fluctuations in turbulent fluids, especially for single-phase flows or two-phase flows, however very few of them can be used for flotation cells. In this study, constant temperature anemometry (CTA) and power measurement methods were used to measure the parameters in two scales of flotation cells. Acceptable correlation between the CTA measurements and the TKEDR has been found under different hydrodynamic conditions in both cells. It shows that this measurement technique enables the scale-up analysis for turbulence in flotation cells.