Insight into performance and mechanism of energy loss for microscale vortex separator/reactor with symmetrical multi-inlets

Effect of number of inlets on performance and flow field of large‐scale cyclone separators

“…4), respectively, which showed that the increment in pressure drop decreases and tends to be consistent with the increase in the inlet number. The variation, however, was not fully reflected in the study of Vahedi 15 due to the not given pressure drop data, and in the study of Dong et al 12 and Zhao et al, 14 which did not include a triple inlet cyclone.…”

“…A large size barrel diameter 900-mm PV cyclone separator 17 was adopted, as shown in Figure 1, and the detailed dimensions are shown in Table 1; inlets are single inlet, double inlet, triple inlet, and quadruple inlet. Comparing the literature, some studies [12][13][14][16][17][18] would keep the total inlet area consistent for single inlet and symmetric inlet cyclones, and some studies made each inlet area the same, that is, two and four times the inlet area for double inlet and quadruple inlet, respectively, than for single inlet. 15 However, engineering generally requires cyclones to handle the same amount of gas, and when the total inlet area is inconsistent, the inlet gas velocity is inconsistent, which affects the velocity distribution within the flow field and, consequently, the performance results.…”

“…15 However, engineering generally requires cyclones to handle the same amount of gas, and when the total inlet area is inconsistent, the inlet gas velocity is inconsistent, which affects the velocity distribution within the flow field and, consequently, the performance results. Besides, only changing inlet width 14 or inlet height 18 are…”

“…This law was also found in previous studies. [12][13][14][15][16] However, the previous literature [12][13][14][15] and Le and Yoon 16 concluded that the efficiency of symmetrical double inlet and quadruple cyclones were higher, respectively, while no study has been conducted on triple inlet cyclones. The efficiency of the symmetric inlet cyclone increased with the number of inlets, which was consistent with the pressure drop trend.…”

“…Dong et al 12 also pointed out that the double inlet cyclone had a smaller vortex eccentricity by CFD (computational fluid dynamic) method and thereby had a high efficiency, but the pressure drop was also higher. Considering the velocity distribution, Zhao et al 14 studied the flow field and performance of single, double, and quadruple inlet cyclones and suggested that the symmetrical inlet increased the tangential velocity and consequently the separation efficiency but at the same time increased the pressure drop. However, the micro‐cyclone used by Zhao, with a diameter of 25 mm and a cylinder height of 250 mm, is not a typical cyclone and is not conducive to engineering practice; Dong et al, 12 Vahedi, 15 and Le 16 all chose a common cylinder‐cone‐type cyclone to carry out a symmetric inlet study.…”