| Miniature cyclone separators have important applications in the detection of bioaerosols in ambient air. Experiments have shown that miniature cyclone can be used to collect bioaerosol particles with high efficiencies and with a reasonable pressure drop in the separation unit. However, performance correlations based on large cyclones may not be uniformly extended to small scale cyclones. The lack of accurate generalized performance correlations for small cyclones has necessitated extensive calibration for each cyclone design. In this study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are carried out using FLUENT, a commercial software package, to model the performance of a range of miniature cyclones. The effect of design parameters such as, the scaling and the dimensions of the cyclone, particle parameters such as, density and shape factor, and operating parameters, such as air flow rate and outlet conditions, on the performance of a cyclone separator is investigated. Based on the results of numerical computations, generalized performance correlations, relating the pressure coefficient and the total collection efficiency to dimensionless number viz. Reynolds number and Stokes number, are developed. |
