The reflection in CFD calculations of influence of mass loading on the separation efficiency in a centrifugal separator

The multiphase flows modelling, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD), is extremely difficult due to the complexity of the phenomena and the influence of a large number of factors. The main purpose of this work is to show how the available models can help to reproduce a simple two-phase flow. In the presented work, using one of the commercial CFD programs, a new flat centrifugal separator design was investigated. The separator consists of a circle with a diameter of 0.2 m and two tangential channels (inlet and outlet). An outlet channel was divided into two separate ones additionally. Simulations were carried out for solid mass flow rate from 0.001 to 0.5 kg/s and for two particle sizes—1 and 30 µm. The performed calculations showed that two-way coupling can correctly reflect the improvement of the particle separation efficiency with the increase in the mass loading. The calculated total separation efficiency increased by approximately four percentage points and resulted from better retention of finer particles.