Abstract
Hydrocyclones are extensively known as important separation devices which are used in many industrial fields. However, the general method to estimate device performance is time-consuming and has a high cost. The aim of this paper was to investigate the blockage diagnosis for a lab-scale hydrocyclone using a vibration-based technique based on wavelet denoising and the discrete-time Fourier transform method. The results indicate that the farther away the installation location from feed inlet the more regular the frequency is, which reveals that the installation plane near to the spigot generated the regular frequency distribution. Furthermore, the acceleration amplitude under blockage degrees 0%, 50% and 100% fluctuates as a sine shape with increasing time, meanwhile the vibration frequency of the hydrocyclone rises with increasing throughput. Moreover, the distribution of four dimensional and five non-dimensional parameters for the time domain shows that the standard deviation, compared to the others, reduced gradually with increases in blockage degree. Thus, the standard deviation was used to evaluate the online diagnosis of the blockage. The frequency domain distribution under different throughput reveals that the characteristic peaks consisting of the faulty frequency and multiple frequency were produced by the faulty blockage and the feed pump, respectively. Hence, the faulty peak of 16–17 Hz was adopted to judge the real-time blockage of the hydrocyclone, i.e., the presence of the characteristic peak marks the blockage, and its value is proportional to the blockage degree. The application of the online monitoring system demonstrates that the combination of the time domain and the frequency domain could admirably detect the running state and rapidly recognize blockage faults.
Highlights
Hydrocyclones are extensively known as important devices for solid-fluid or solid-solid separation via centrifugal force [1,2]
Due to the distinct virtue of a simple design, convenient operation, high capacity and low cost, hydrocyclones have been widely used in mineral, chemical, environmental and some other industrial fields [5,6,7]
The peak that lies in 16–17 Hz can be considered as the characteristic parameter to judge the real-time blockage phenomenon of the hydrocyclone, i.e., the presence of the characteristic peak marks the blockage and its value is proportional to the blockage degree
Summary
Hydrocyclones are extensively known as important devices for solid-fluid or solid-solid separation via centrifugal force [1,2]. The typical method to estimate the classification performance of hydrocyclones employs the partition curve, which illustrates the mass fraction of particles of specific size in the inlet that reports to the underflow [8]. The evaluation procedure includes sampling, sample treatment, testing and data analysis [9,10]. This evaluation method can accurately reflect the device performance, it possesses the disadvantages of being time-consuming and high cost. This is adverse for the timely and economic judgment of hydrocyclone status, which could improve the faulty operating conditions and reduce continued economical operation
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