Numerical simulation of a dense solid particle flow inside a cyclone separator using the hybrid Euler-Lagrange approach

This paper presents a numerical simulation of the flow inside a cyclone separator at high particle loads. The gas and gas–particle flows were analyzed using a commercial computational fluid dynamics code. The turbulence effects inside the separator were modeled using the Reynolds stress model. The two phase gas–solid particles flow was modeled using a hybrid Euler–Lagrange approach, which accounts for the four-way coupling between phases. The simulations were performed for three inlet velocities of the gaseous phase and several cyclone mass particle loadings. Moreover, the influences of several submodel parameters on the calculated results were investigated. The obtained results were compared against experimental data collected at the in-house experimental rig. The cyclone pressure drop evaluated numerically underpredicts the measured values. The possible reason of this discrepancies was disused.

Numerical analysis of frictional behavior of dense gas-solid systems

Dense gas-solid flows show significantly higher stresses compared with dilute flows, mainly attributable to particle-particle friction in dense particle flows. Several models developed have considered particle-particle friction; however, they generally underestimate its effect in dense regions of the gas-solid system, leading to unrealistic predictions in their flow patterns. Recently, several attempts have been made to formulate such flows and the impact of particle-particle friction on predicting flow patterns based on modified frictional viscosity models by including effects of bulk density changes on frictional pressure of the solid phase. The solid-wall boundary is also expected to have considerable effect on friction because particulate phases generally slip over the solid surface that directly affects particle-particle frictional forces. Polydispersity of the solid phase also leads to higher friction between particles as more particles have sustained contact in polydispersed systems. Their effects were investi- gated by performing CFD simulations of particle settlement to calculate the slope angle of resting material of non-cohesive particles as they settle on a solid surface. This slope angle is directly affected by frictional forces and may be a reasonably good measure of frictional forces between particles. The calculated slope angle, as a measure of frictional forces inside the system are compared with experimental values of this slope angle as well as simulation results from the literature.