Enhancing an industrial feedwell design and operation using computational fluid dynamics

IF 2.8 3区工程技术 Q1 MATHEMATICS, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS

Computational Particle Mechanics Pub Date : 2023-09-08 DOI:10.1007/s40571-023-00651-5

Mona Akbari, Hesam Salimi, Rahman Zeynali, Soheil Akbari

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Abstract

Thickeners are important units for water recovery in various industries. In this study, a vane feedwell has been investigated using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The population balance model is used to describe particle aggregation and breakup. The Eulerian–Eulerian approach with RNG k–ɛ turbulence model is applied to describe two phases of slurry flow in the feedwell under steady-state condition. The simulation results are compared with the operating data of a mineral plant and a reasonable agreement is achieved. Different design variations are evaluated to improve performance of vane feedwell. In addition, the effect of important parameters such as outlet velocity, turbulence dissipation rate, feed flow rate, solid percentage in the feed, and average diameter of the output particles on the feedwell performance is studied, and the optimum feedwell feed flow rate, geometry of feed channel and solid particles in slurry are obtained using the developed CFD model. The results of this study are in general helpful for improving the performance of thickeners, particularly in the copper industry.

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利用计算流体力学改进工业给料井的设计和运行

浓缩机是各行各业回收水的重要设备。本研究采用计算流体动力学（CFD）方法对叶片进料井进行了研究。种群平衡模型用于描述颗粒的聚集和破碎。采用欧拉-欧拉方法和 RNG k-ɛ 湍流模型来描述稳态条件下给料井中浆料流动的两个阶段。将模拟结果与一家矿厂的运行数据进行了比较，结果吻合。对不同的设计变化进行了评估，以提高叶片给料井的性能。此外，还研究了出口速度、湍流耗散率、进料流速、进料中固体百分比和输出颗粒平均直径等重要参数对给料井性能的影响，并利用开发的 CFD 模型获得了最佳给料井进料流速、进料通道几何形状和矿浆中固体颗粒。研究结果总体上有助于提高浓缩机的性能，特别是在铜工业中。

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来源期刊

Computational Particle Mechanics Mathematics-Computational Mathematics

CiteScore

5.70

自引率

9.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： GENERAL OBJECTIVES: Computational Particle Mechanics (CPM) is a quarterly journal with the goal of publishing full-length original articles addressing the modeling and simulation of systems involving particles and particle methods. The goal is to enhance communication among researchers in the applied sciences who use "particles'''' in one form or another in their research. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: Particle-based materials and numerical methods have become wide-spread in the natural and applied sciences, engineering, biology. The term "particle methods/mechanics'''' has now come to imply several different things to researchers in the 21st century, including: (a) Particles as a physical unit in granular media, particulate ﬂows, plasmas, swarms, etc., (b) Particles representing material phases in continua at the meso-, micro-and nano-scale and (c) Particles as a discretization unit in continua and discontinua in numerical methods such as Discrete Element Methods (DEM), Particle Finite Element Methods (PFEM), Molecular Dynamics (MD), and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), to name a few.