On the performance of cyclone separators with different shapes of the conical section using CFD

Abstract

The present work evaluates the effect of various geometrical shapes of the conical segment on cyclone performance. For this, five different shapes of the cone walls viz. a straight profile, concave profile, convex profile, followed by hybrid concave-convex as well as convex-concave profiles, are analysed. The performance of all the models is predicted using the Reynolds stress model considering two pressure-strain options viz. the linear pressure-strain and the stress-omega models – the latter very well captures the mean velocity field, coherent fluctuations, and the precessing frequency of the vortex core. The different profiles of the conical segment were found to affect pressure drop more than the collection efficiency. Conclusive results indicate that the performance of the convex variant – particularly at high flow rates – outperforms the baseline model and other variants and could be preferred over the conventional design. The concave variant experiences the highest pressure drop with enhanced collection efficiency.