Influence of guide vane on dispersion of aggregates near the guide vane in a turbo air classifier

Ultra-fine particles are prone to agglomeration, limiting the preparation of ultra-fine powder. The aggregates' disaggregation mechanism is studied, and the proposal of improving the guide vane of a turbo air classifier is contributed to strengthen powder disaggregation based on CFD-DEM coupling and the novel local fluid domain extraction method. The results show the cylindrical tail of guide vane is conducive to the disaggregation, and the powder dispersion near the guide vane is improved. When the inlet air velocity vin is <18 m·s−1, the cylindrical tail of guide vane can significantly improve the powder dispersion. When the cylinder diameter is larger than or equal to 2 mm, the effect of the increase of the cylinder diameter on powder dispersion is significant. However, the increase of cylinder diameter will lead to the increase of energy consumption, so the cylinder diameter should not be too large.