Sizing and calculation of the complete cycle of industrial batch centrifuges

Abstract

Porous media structure and filtration fundamental parameters can be obtained from laboratory filtration and compression-permeability tests and from determining capillary curves. Using these results, a simulation programme which integrates the filtration-permeation theoretical laws under a centrifugal field, and describes the drainage kinetics modelled in a capillary system, leads to a complete batch centrifuge theoretical cycle description. However, pilot centrifuge experiments show that these direct extrapolations are not always reliable because some specific phenomena found in industrial dewatering were not taken into account. Shearing and compressing which occur during the washing phase, cloth and heel blinding due to the migration of fine particles and heel glazing caused by the knife during the successive dischargings, cannot be simulated in a laboratory filtration cell.