Study on the separation performance of a three-product hydrocyclone with overflow reseparation

Abstract

This manuscript proposes a three-product hydrocyclone with overflow reseparation to reduce the particle misplacement in overflow, which achieves secondary separation by utilizing the after-energy of internal swirling flow. Numerical simulations and physical tests were applied to investigate the separation performance. The simulation results revealed that the coarser particles entrapped were effectively recovered by sideflow, the recovery of 20 μm particles in the overflow decreased by 16.71 % ∼ 23.09 % with significant fineness improvement compared with conventional hydrocyclone. The intensity of the internal centrifugal field decreased with the overflow separation chamber expanded, which resulted in an increased probability of particle misplacement during overflow. The test results revealed that the particle content of more than 20 μm in overflow was reduced by 2.44 % compared with conventional hydrocyclone, reducing the overflow separation chamber increased the sideflow ratio and solid phase yield, increased the difference in fineness between sideflow and overflow, and improved the narrow-grain separation performance.