A REVIEW OF CFD MODELLING FOR PERFORMANCE PREDICTIONS OF HYDROCYCLONE

A critical assessment is presented for the existing numerical models used for the performance prediction of hydrocyclones. As the present discussion indicates, the flow inside a hydrocyclone is quite complex and there have been numerous numerical studies on the flows and the particle motions in hydrocyclone, with a wide range of turbulence and multiphase models tested. Two-equation k-epsilon and RNG k-epsilon models flow velocities with empirical modifications were led to poor results, especially the tangential components in comparison with experimental measurements. Most of the recent studies have utilized the Reynolds stress models (RSM) with different degrees of complexity in the pressure-strain correlation. These RSM studies showed good agreements with velocity measurements. Unfortunately, the velocity profiles were not validated in most of the RSM cases where multiphase particle tracking were applied. Finally, large eddy simulation (LES) is the most advanced turbulence model applied in recent hydrocyclone numeric studies. Besides the additional information on precising the air core correctly, LES provides an additional accuracy in predicting the velocity profiles or the grade efficiency in comparison to the RSM. The multiphase models have been successfully applied in a hydrocyclone to model the Lagranizian motions of spherical particles. Eulerian-Eulerian model have been used to account for the particles effect on the fluid viscosity. Simplified Eulerian model (mixture) model predictions for solid transportation in cyclone were well predicted. Further, the inclusion of modified slip velocity calculation in the Mixture model improves the efficiency predictions close to the experimental data at low feed solid loadings. In future studies, the focus should be to model the three-dimensional flow in a hydrocyclone using at least the Reynolds stress model/LES. The particle tracking should at least include the effects of the turbulence on the particles. All these developed models will only applicable to low feed solid concentration levels. Since most of these models neglect the particle-particle interactions, a more comprehensive numerical method of modified Mixture model is applied for simulating solids flow in hydrocyclones for high feed solids concentration. Explicit models for accounting hindered settling and turbulent diffusion investigated for high feed solid concentrations in industrial cyclones are encouraging.