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Cyclone dust hopper influence
in the vortex core

THE PROBLEM
  • Widely used in industries to separate dust from gas:
    1. geometrical simplicity
    2. inexpensive to manufacture
    3. flexibility with respect to high temperature and pressure
  • High swirl intensity
  • High curvature of the average streamlines
  • Anisotropy effects
  • Radial shear and the adverse pressure gradients
GOALS
  • Evaluate
    1. pressure drop and compare the results with experimental data (Dirgo et al. 1985)
    2. hopper influence in the vortex core (Slack et al. 2000)
MODELING APPROACH
  • The Phases approach
    1. Continuous phase: air
  • Transient
  • High order advection scheme
  • Interpolation scheme:
    1. Pressure: trilinear-trilinear
    2. Velocity: trilinear-trilinear
  • SSG turbulence model
  • Mesh analysis
    1. Hexaedrical versus tetraedrical mesh in different velocities
CUSTOMER

Petrobras - Brazil

SUMMARY

The influences of the mesh, as well as the presence of a hopper were tested.

Pressure drop:

  • both, tetrahedrical and hexahedrical meshes, were good enough to represent the experimental data for low velocities at the inlet of the cyclone. As the velocity rises to values near 25 m/s, however, the hexahedrical mesh shows better results and should be used.

Hopper Analysis:

  • the presence of a hopper was extremely important for the comparison. An extra enlargement of the hopper geometry was tested;
  • the use of hopper is an attempt to reproduce some kind of industrial cyclones.