Numerical Simulation of Gas Flow in a Square Cyclone Separator With Double Inlets

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of gas flow in a square cyclone separator with a double inlet. The turbulence of gas flow is computed by the use of the Reynolds stress model. The distribution of the flow field and pressure drop under different constructional details, which include changes of the shape, size and arrangement of the vortex finder are obtained. The computed results in the distributions of pressure in different sections are verified by comparison with those measured. We found that the center of the flow field is nearly on the geometric center of the cyclone. The flow fields show a feature of Rankine eddy, i.e., a strongly swirling region in the central part and a pseudo-free eddy region of weak swirling intensity near the cyclone wall. Local vortex exists at the corners where the flow changes their direction sharply, but it is less chaotic than in the general square cyclone with a single inlet. The flow field away from the outlet of the vortex finder is different from the Rankine eddy. The pressure-drop increases rapidly with the increase of the inlet velocity, and the pressure-drop increases with the decrease of the diameter of vortex finder and the increase of length of the vortex finder. The calculat ed results of this paper provide some guidance for the optimization of the square cyclone separator structure.