Advances in Cyclonic Flow

Regimes
Dr. Dimitrios Papoulias, Thomas Eppinger

Agenda
Introduction
Cyclones & Hydrocyclones
Modeling Approaches in STAR-CCM+

Turbulence Modeling
Case 1: Air-Air Cyclone
Case 2: Oil-Water Hydrocyclone with LMP & EMP
Case 3: Gas-Solid Cyclone
Summary

Cyclones
Separation of particulates from a continuous stream (air/liquid) without
filter medium
Separation based on rotational effects/centrifugal forces and gravity (density
difference!)
Advantages

Disadvantages

Low capital cost

High operating cost

(pressure drop)

High temperature

Low efficiency for

small particles

Low maintenance cost

(no moving parts)
Low space requirement

Modeling Approaches
Two-Phase Modeling techniques:
Eulerian-Lagrangian model (LMP):

dispersed phase is realized as discrete populations of droplets

droplet trajectories are tracked by Newton's 2nd law of motion
integrated forces included drag, lift, pressure-grad. & added-mass
turbulent dispersion effects (random-walk model)

Eulerian-Eulerian model (EMP):

two-fluid method based on the interpenetrating continua assumption; each flowphase is treated by its own set of N-S
the continuous & dispersed phases are coupled by incorporating source-terms for
the acting forces i.e. drag, lift, virtual mass & turbulent dispersion

Case 1: EMP-RSM Model Verification

Verification of the applicability of
EMP-RSM for cyclone simulation.
Overcome Lagrangian limitations:
Low volume fraction of the
dispersed phase
Including disperse phase interaction
Performance

Testing RSM on ERCOFTAC singlephase cyclone

Model predictions are compared
against LDV measurements

Case 1: EMP-RSM Model Verification

700k trimmed cells (polys also
tested)
Single-phase: Air.
EMP with two identical phases
(Air) and VF ratios of:
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.6
0.2 0.8

Velocity inlet (20m/s) and pressure

outlet.
RSM (k-epsilon also tested)
Transient (dt = 0.005s)
Drag and TDF included.

Mean-axial velocity (m/s)

Case 1: EMP-RSM Model Verification

position Y (m)

RSM can successfully replicate the experimental measurements for single

phase flow as well as for EMP.

Case 1: EMP-RSM Model Verification

RSM

RLZ
Trim-Hex
(0.2M)

Uaxial/Uin

Trim-Hex
(0.7M)

BASELINE

BASELINE

Trim-Hex Polyhedral
(0.7M)
(0.8M)

STD

z=0.77
x/D

RLZ: Realizable k-e

STD: Standard

uz (m/s)

25

Case 2: Geometry Description

Property

Value

Chamber Diameter D

60 mm

Outlet D_o

3.6 mm

Dn / D

0.5

20

1.5

Lc / D

Lo / D

15

Total height

1200 mm

Hydrocyclones for oil/water separation, Int. Confer. Hydrocyclones, Colman et al.

Turbulence and Mesh Resolution

The RSM turbulence model is used
in order to capture vortical twophase dynamics i.e. pressure-drop,
flow mixing & separation)
Two-phase flow interactions and
separation occurs at length-scale
equivalent to the size of the
dispersed droplets i.e. in order of a
few m
Resolution of vortex separation
regimes requires
fine spatial discretization (14M
trimmed cells (hexahedrons).

top-view

mid-section

Case 2: Simulation Setup

Out_top

CAD model generated in STAR-CCM+

2 inlets

in

in

= 1.02 kg/s, = 0.007 kg/s

Flow split outlet

Top(oil) = 0.1, bottom(water) = 0.9

Density
Water = 997 kg/m^3; Oil = 840 kg/m^3

Phase interaction

Drag (Schiller-Naumann)
Turbulent Dispersion
Virtual Mass
Shear Lift (Sommerfeld)
Pressure gradient
Particel Size Distribution (log-normal, [20100 m])
Rebound at wall.

Lagrangian: One-way coupling, steady

(C=0.01)
EMP: Fully coupled, transient (dt = 0.001s)
Out_bottom

Case 2: Results LMP & EMP

Separation efficiency well

predicted.

efficiency ()

Pressure drop (inlet/oil_outlet) of

4bar agrees well with exp. Data.

Droplet diam. (m)

Case 3: Gas-Solid Cyclone

Two-phase air & solid-particles
cyclone case
Eulerian-Lagrangian validation
calculations in Stairmands cyclone
geometry.
Single-phase simulations for
different flow-rates & Multiphase
cases for different particle diameters

P (Pa)

pressure-drop

Uinlet (m/s)

tangential vel

Case 3: LMP Results

mean
tangential-velocity

d=10
m

d=0.1
m

Utang./Uin

Z=0.58

Z=0.18

x/D

diam. [m]

0.5

1.0

4.0

5.0

exp. %

20.5

25.7

98.5

100

cfd %

14.6

24.2

98.3

99.9

Summary
STAR-CCM+ predicts for cyclones and hydrocyclones
pressure drop,
Flow profile and
Separation efficiency.

Both approaches (EMP and LMP) shows very good agreement with
experimental data.
Turbulence modeling and mesh resolution are key parameters for an
accurate result.

Thank you !