Numerical Simulation Of Mineral Particles’Movement Behavior In Swirly Compound Force Field

Mineral resources are non-reproducible. With the continuous exploitation of human beings, the reserves of high-grade ores decline sharply, and the poor, fine, complex features of ores are more and more outstanding. Facing the serious resource situation, researchers pay more and more attention to the processing research of low-grade, fine-grain and refractory ore. By improving the levels of process, theory and equipment, they hope to achieve the maximum utilization of mineral resources.It is a effective way to achieve the effective separation of fine grain mineral by establishing an effective compound force field to increase the movement distinction of different mineral particles artificially. As typical equipment using a compound force field of centrifugal force and gravity, hydrocyclone is widely used in mineral processing process of concentration, desliming, classification and separation because of its simple structure, small footprint, easy installation, low operation cost, flexible operation and simple process.Although the structure of hydrocyclone is simple, but its internal flow field, as typical three-dimensional highly turbulent swirling flow field, is very complex. Researchers attach great importance to the measurement and research of its internal flow field, and have obtained many achievements. However, the research of particles’ movement behavior in the hydrocyclone is still not enough. Because of the limitation of mechanical model and research method, people have not gotten outstanding achievements.Based on the computational fluid dynamics method, this paper do the numerical simulation of hydrocyclone’s flow field by using the Reynolds Stress Model(RSM) of FLUENT software. Through the analysis of the simulation results, we can obtain the distribution law of pressure, axial velocity, tangential velocity and radial velocity, which is same as the theoretical analysis results. Furthermore, this paper simulates the hydrocyclone flow field with different structural and operating parameters, and studies the influence of cone angle, apex diameter and feeding pressure on the pressure distribution and axial velocity distribution within the hydrocyclone flow field, and the result obtained could provide certain technical support to the design and selection of hydrocyclone. Based on the flow field simulation, this paper uses the discrete phase model (DPM) provided by FLUENT software and the interphase-coupling method to model the movement behavior of particles in the hydrocyclone. Furthermore, this paper studies the effect of particle size effect and density effect on the movement behavior of particles. The simulation results could predict the separation size of particles more accurately, and make people get a deeper understanding of the classification and separation process.