Effect of spiral vanes width on the separation performance of a hydrocyclone

Abstract

Aiming at the problem of “entrainment fine particles in underflow” of hydrocyclone in grinding and classification process, a hydrocyclone with spiral vanes (the SV hydrocyclone) was proposed. The CFD techniques were used to study the pressure field, velocity field, turbulence field, particle field and classification efficiency of hydrocyclones with spiral vanes of different widths. The results show that the pressure drop, axial velocity, tangential velocity, turbulence intensity of SV hydrocyclone are reduced in different degrees compared with conventional hydrocyclone, and the reduction becomes more obvious with the increase of vane width. In the case of a vane width of 0.04D, the underflow recovery rate of 5μm and 10μm fine particles was reduced by 16.2% and 15.7%. The selection of spiral vanes with small widths is beneficial to improve the separation accuracy of fine particles and reduce the cut particle size.