CFD Simulation Study on Particle Arrangements at the Entrance to a Swirling Flow Field for Improving the Separation Efficiency of Cyclones

Based on the concept of particle arrangements at the entrance of a swirling flow field, this paper designs common cyclone (C-cyclone), positive rotation cyclone (PR-cyclone), and reverse rotation cyclone (RR-cyclone). FLUENT software is used to perform CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation study on these three cyclones. The study result shows that particles are more easily separated if they are closer to the lower part of the outer wall of the entrance to the swirling flow field, whereas particles access the short circuit current more easily if they are closer to the upper part of the inner wall, thereby generating particles escape. The RR-cyclone helps particles to avoid regions of short-circuiting flow, and thus improves the separation performance. In each part of the separator, the particle concentration within the RR-cyclone is lower than that in the C-cyclone and in the PR-cyclone. Moreover, the separation efficiency of the RR-cyclone is higher than that of the C-cyclone and the PR-cyclone in different inlet flows.