Hydrodynamic simulation of cyclone separators

Abstract

A review chapter on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for cyclone separators. Cyclone separators are widely used for separating dispersed solid particles from the gas phase in processes such as fluid catalytic cracking, circulating fluidized bed combustion, and spray drying. Despite their simple construction, the fluid dynamics inside cyclone separators are very complex, characterised by inherently unsteady, highly anisotropic turbulent flow in a strongly swirling confinement. The chapter reviews important cyclone characteristics including collection efficiency, pressure drop, and velocity fields, comparing CFD predictions with experimental data for various geometrical designs, inlet velocities, particle diameters and loadings. Turbulence models based on higher-order closure, like the Reynolds Stress Model with unsteady RANS formulation, are shown to give reasonable prediction capabilities. An example of using CFD to investigate erosion in a cyclone separator is also presented.

@incollection{utikar2010cfd,
  title         = {Hydrodynamic simulation of cyclone separators},
  author        = {Utikar, Ranjeet and Darmawan, Nina and Tade, Moses and Li, Qin and Evans, G.
                  and Glenny, M. and Pareek, Vishnu},
  year          = 2010,
  booktitle     = {Computational fluid dynamics},
  publisher     = {InTech},
  pages         = {241--266},
  url           = {https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UP2PDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA241}
}