Designing the hydrocyclone with flat bottom structure for weakening bypass effect

As a principal reason for the deterioration of separation accuracy, the bypass effect in hydrocyclones has received widely concerned. This paper presents a numerical study about the effect of flat bottom structure width on the bypass effect with the respect of flow field characteristics, separation efficiency, and particle spatial distribution with a verified TFM model. Numerical results demonstrate that wide flat bottom structure increases the cut size and reduces the fine particles misplaced in the underflow. However, the excessive flat bottom structure width increases coarse particles misplaced in the overflow causing by the superior turbulence intensity and the entrapment of the internal swirling flow. A wide flat bottom structure width reduces the turbulence dissipation rate, while the split ratio first decreases and then increases, indicating that the bypass effect is controlled by the turbulence dissipation and does not comply with the trend of the split ratio. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study found that a wide flat bottom structure in hydrocyclones results in a larger cut size and fewer fine particles misplaced in the underflow, but also increases coarse particles misplaced in the overflow. Excessive flat bottom structure width leads to higher turbulence intensity and entrapment of internal swirling flow, affecting the separation efficiency.