Study on the separation performance of honeycomb cone hydrocyclone

The entrainment of fine particles in the underflow and coarse particles in the overflow are well-known problems during separation using conventional cylindrical-conical hydrocyclone. In order to enhance the separation accuracy, the paper proposed a new type of honeycomb cone hydrocyclone and investigated its separation performance. Numerical simulations were conducted to study the effects of different structural parameters on the internal flow field, including the concave ball diameter db, the distribution position of concave balls Pb and the area occupancy ratio of concave balls Nb. Compared with conventional hydrocyclone, the turbulence intensity inside the honeycomb cone hydrocyclone is reduced, and higher separation accuracy is obtained. Better separation effect is found when the structural parameter db is 6 mm, Nb is 40%, and the concave ball is distributed in the upper part of the cone. The classification efficiency of particles smaller than 45 μm is increased by 7.86%.