Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Air-Particle Two-Phase Flow in Centrifugal Separator

The velocity distributions inside a centrifugal separator with outside and inside diameters of 152.4 mm (6″) and 76.2 mm (3″), respectively, have been investigated experimentally and numerically to obtain optimum separation efficiency. Two 12.7 mm (1/2-inch) holes were drilled on the external surface of the separator to measure the velocity distribution in the separator. Two direction velocities (tangential direction along the cylinder surface and axial along the vertical direction) were measured to compare with the numerical simulation results. A 6060P Pitot probe was employed to obtain the velocity distribution. The dust samples (a mixture of steel particle and dust) from the dust collection box were analyzed using a Phillips XL30 Scanning Electron Microscope. FLUENT code is used as the numerical solver for this fully three-dimensional problem. The fluid flow in the separator is assumed to be steady and incompressible turbulent flow. The standard k–ε model was employed in this study. Non-uniform, unstructured grids are chosen to discretize the entire computation domain. Almost 100,000 cells are used to discretize the whole separator. The constant velocity profile is imposed on the inlet plane. The pressure boundary condition is adopted at outlet plane. Comparing the velocity distribution and separation efficiency from the experiment and the numerical modeling shows that the experimental results and the estimated data agree fairly well and with a deviation within ±10%.