Investigation of optimal design and separation performance of the hydrocyclone with a vorticose involute-line diversion feeding body

Abstract

As an important transport channel for multi-phase flow, the feeding body imposes significant effects on the formation of granularity layer and pre-separation of particles. In a conventional feeding body, particles are generally under a turbulent state and intensively collide with the wall surface, thereby leading to the decline in particle separation precision. In this study, a novel hydrocyclone with a vorticose involute-line diversion feeding body was designed, and meanwhile the feeding body was optimized in structure. By means of numerical analysis, the inner flow field and particle separation performance were examined. It was found that using the novel structure of the feeding body can effectively reduce the inner turbulence in the hydrocyclone, accompanied with the enhancement of flow field stability and particle separation precision. Compared with the conventional hydrocyclone, the content of fine particles in the overflow can be enhanced by 32.68% while that in the underflow can be reduced by 43.17% using the novel feeding body. To be specific, the quality efficiency and quantity efficiency of the novel hydrocyclone were 15.66% and 14.87% higher than that of the conventional hydrocyclone, respectively, exhibiting remarkable improvement. Finally, the effect of inlet flow rate on the separation performance of the novel hydrocyclone was investigated. Results show that fine particles moved gradually outwards with the increasing inlet flow rate, accompanied with gradually increasing content of fine particles in the underflow and the decline in the mass of coarse particles. The cutting capability can also be enhanced with the increase of the inlet flow rate. At an inlet flow rate of 4.1055 L/min, the separation precision reached a peak. The present conclusion can offer insightful guidance for the further development of novel hydrocyclones.