The Influence Mechanism And Optimization Study Of The Tail Tube Structure For Hydrocyclone Separation

The underflow tube has an important effect on split ratio and cut diameter, which is one of the important factors to the separation performance of the hydrocyclone. During the traditional hydrocyclone design, de-oil hydrocyclone's underflow tube is usually straight pipe, and normally direct contact with air. With the kind of structure, it will form a linear flow at the underflow tube during the separation. It will also disturb the flow field. It has problems such as large split ratio, low separation efficiency, low treating ability and so on.Considering the problems above, the paper studied the separation mechanism and flow field characteristics of the oil removal hydrocyclone through mechanism analyzing, numerical simulation and testing. We complete the optimization of the underflow tube structure.Numerical simulation was carried out by using the CFD software FLUENT, which is based on Reynolds average N-S equation. RNG k-εmodel was taken as the turbulence model, control volume method was considered, SIMPLE algorithm was applied. By modifying the correlation parameters in control equations, the interior flow field of the new tail pipe structure of liquid-liquid hydrocyclone was analyzed. By numerical simulation, the velocity distribution characteristics and pressure distribution characteristics of the hydrocyclone flow field were obtained.Different tail pipe structures were tested in optimization simulation and analysis. Then the final structure style was formed. By using the optimized underflow tube forms of de-oil hydrocyclone we can realize oil-water two-phase high efficient separation.The feasibility of numerical simulation for optimizing design is also approved. The effect of flow rate and split ratio on separation efficiency is researched. Experimental results and numerical simulation results were compared and analyzed. It verifies the accuracy of the simulation analysis.The paper provides a theoretical basis and reference for further research of the separation mechanism, separation characteristic and structural optimization design of the oil-water hydrocyclone.