Investigating Dual Inlet Cyclone Separator Performance: Effects of Vortex Finder Diameter, Shape, and Particle Diameter on Separation Efficiency and Pressure Drop

Abstract

The diameter and shape of the vortex finder of cyclone separator plays a significant role in separation efficiency and pressure drop. Currently, there have been many studies conducted on the shape and ratio of vortex finder of cyclone separator. This paper aims to compare numerical results of Raynold stress turbulence model RSM with K-ε RNG numerical analysis results and analyse the effect of further variation of the vortex finder diameter and shape of dual inlet cyclone separators. Five variation of vortex finder diameters namely 291mm, 310mm, 330mm, 348mm, and 366mm, four types of vortex finder shapes namely normal (cylindrical), spiral, divergent and spiral-divergent have been studied with different particle diameter and constant inlet velocity. The result obtained from this study suggests that increasing the vortex finder diameter have negative effect on separation efficiency. It also shows that increasing the vortex finder diameter consistently decrease the pressure drop. From the result, it is been found that the 291mm vortex finder has higher separation efficiency than the rest. Analysis with different vortex shapes, the spiral-divergent shape proved to be best in terms of separation efficiency.