No abstract

The particle concentration inside a cyclone separator at different operation parameters was simulated with the FLUENT software. The Advanced Reynolds Stress Model (ARSM) was used in gas phase turbulence modeling. Stochastic Particle Tracking Model (SPTM) and the Particle-Source-In-Cell (PSIC) method were adopted for particles computing. The interaction between particles and the gas phase was also taken into account. The numerical simulation results were in agreement with the experimental data. The simulation revealed that an unsteady spiral dust strand appeared near the cyclone wall and a non-axi-symmetrical dust ring appeared in the annular space and under the cover plate of the cyclone. There were two regions in the radial particle concentration distribution, in which particle concentration was low in the inner region (r/R 0.75) and increased greatly in the outer region (r/R>0.75). Large particles generally had higher concentration in the near-wall region and small particles had higher concentration in the inner swirling flow region. The axial distribution of particle concentration in the inner swirling flow (r/R 0.3) region showed that there existed serious fine particle entrainment within the height of 0.5D above the dust discharge port and a short-cut flow at a distance of about 0.25D below the entrance of the vortex finder. The dimensionless concentration in the high-concentration region increased obviously in the upper part of the cyclone separation space when inlet particle loading was large. With increasing gas temperature, the particle separation ability of the cyclone was obviously weakened.

The gas flow field in a cyclone separator, operated within a temperature range of 293 K -1373 K and a pressure range of 0.1 -6.5 MPa, has been simulated using a modified Reynolds-stress model (RSM) on commercial software platform FLUENT 6.1. The computational results show that the temperature and pressure significantly influence the gas velocity vectors, especially on their tangential component, in the cyclone. The tangential velocity decreases with an increase in temperature and increases with an increase in pressure. This tendency of the decrease or increase, however, reduces gradually when the temperature is above 1000 K or the pressure goes beyond 1.0 MPa. The temperature and pressure have a relatively weak influence on the axial velocity profiles. The outer downward flow rate increases with a temperature increase, whereas it decreases with a pressure increase. The centripetal radial velocity is strong in the region of 0 -0.25D below the vortex finder entrance, which is named as a short-cut flow zone in this study. Based on the simulation results, a set of correlations was developed to calculate the combined effects of temperature and pressure on the tangential velocity, the downward flow rate in the cyclone and the centripetal radial velocity in the short-cut flow region underneath the vortex finder.