Open Access

ARTICLE

EFFECT OF GAS FLOW RATE ON SEPARATION EFFICIENCY AT DIFFERENT SCALING SCALES OF CYCLONE SEPARATORS

Yangyang Tian^a , Zhuo Chen^b,* , Qi Zhuang^c

a College of Petroleum Engineering, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi'an, 710065, China
b The Second Oil Production Plant, Sinopec Northwest Oilfield Company, Urumqi, 830016, China
c. The Second Gas Production Plant, PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company, Xi'an, 710018, China
* Corresponding Author. E-mail: 18691298736@163.com.

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2023, 20, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.20.26

Abstract

The cyclone separator has remarkable amplification effect, which is an important factor affecting its separation efficiency and pressure drop. The numerical simulation of Stairmand cyclone separators with cylinder diameters of 200, 280, 400, 480 and 600mm after geometric similarity amplification was carried out by ANSYS software. RSM model was used for gas phase and DPM model was used for particle phase. The results show that after the cyclone size is enlarged geometrically, the tangential velocity tends to increase with the increase of the cyclone barrel diameter at the same inlet gas velocity, which leads to the increase of turbulence energy in the internal flow field of the large size cyclone and the formation of local "eccentric circulation" in the cone section, and causes This leads to an increase in the tangential velocity, which leads to an increase in the turbulent energy in the internal flow field of the large-size cyclone, resulting in the formation of an eccentric ring flow in the cone section, and a tendency for "return flow" and "short-circuit flow" at the lower end of the overflow pipe. The numerical simulation of the particle motion and the experimental results of the separation efficiency both show that the separation efficiency of the Stairmand cyclone for particles of the same size decreases with the enlargement of the barrel diameter; the enlargement effect of the cyclone has little effect on the separation efficiency of particles above 10µm in diameter and a significant effect on the separation efficiency of particles below 10µm in diameter.

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