The effects of solid shear stress and wall roughness on the simulation of cylindrical hydrocyclone classification

Reasonable numerical conditions are critical for the precision and accuracy of the numerical consequences of hydrocyclones. In this paper, the effects of resistance coefficient, wall roughness, and friction packing limit on particle velocity and distribution as well as the separation behaviors were studied in a cylindrical hydrocyclone using the two-fluid model. The results show that the friction packing limit and wall roughness can significantly influence the numerical results, whereas the effect of the resistance coefficient is negligible. As the friction packing limit increases from 0.4 to 0.55, the cut size gradually decreases with improving separation sharpness, and it reaches the minimum when the friction parking limit is 0.5. The wall roughness monotonously increases the cut size and reduces the separation sharpness. Simulation results were also compared with experimental data, and a reasonable prediction can be obtained with resistance coefficient, friction packing limit, and wall roughness height of 0.95, 0.5, and 50 μm, respectively.