(311f) Swirl Number Analysis for Performance Data Prediction of Uniflow Cyclones

Uniflow cyclones are used for the separation of a dispersed solid phase from a continuous fluid phase e.g. in fluid catalytic cracking or combustion engines in filter applications. Therefore particles enter the separator through a vane guide pack. Due to the resulting centrifugal forces the particles move in radial direction to the particle discharge in downstream direction. To achieve high separation efficiency and low pressure drop a systematic parameter study is carried out to identify the main geometric influence factors e.g. vane angle α or core ratio dc/dz. Stereoscopic PIV is used for an in-deep analysis of the swirl flow regime inside the separator to gain a deeper insight into the dominant flow structures and the corresponding force field respectively. An extensive comparison of swirl number calculations is presented to evaluate the effects inside of the separation chamber. Additionally the flow field is used as a basis for a state-space-representation system of ordinary differential equations to calculate critical diameters based on an equilibrium force model. ISO 5011:2014 gas-solid-separation tests are presented for validation. Goal is to find correlation between the velocity field and the performance data of the uniflow cyclone for future prediction.

[1] Kofler, T., Pillei, M., and Kraxner, M., “Influence of the Inlet Vane Geometry On the Uniflow Cyclones Performance (639f)”. AIChE 2015 Annual Meeting, 2015