Abstract This study combined numerical simulation and experiment to explore the influence of the concave‐wall jets with uniformly distributed tangential inlets in the cyclone separator on the liquid–solid separation characteristics and equipment. The results show that as the number of tangential inlets increases, the superposition effect of particle trajectories and flow fields becomes more significant. The superimposed flow field enhances the circumferential flow velocity of the fluid, causing the distribution of the jet along the radial and spanwise directions to shrink, greatly improving the uniformity of particle distribution and turbulent kinetic energy along the circumference, and effectively reducing the impact of particles on local areas near the jet inlet. Since the superposition of circumferential multi‐inlet jets enhances the swirling flow, the local disturbance and wall erosion effects near the jet inlet were reduced. Compared with double inlets, the flow rates of three inlets and four inlets were increased by 50% and 100%, respectively, the maximum turbulent kinetic energy increased by 14.5% and 56.2%, and the maximum escape time of particles was shortened by 3.2 and 3.3 s, respectively, the maximum erosion rates were reduced by 38.4% and 23.6%, respectively, and the separation efficiency and material handling capacity were significantly improved. This study supplemented the theory of concave‐wall jets' superposition characteristics and provided a theoretical basis for applying circumferential multi‐inlet devices in liquid–solid separation equipment.
The centrifugal force field in a hydrocyclone was affected by the concave-wall curvature radius R0, and the mechanism underlying droplet deformation was closely related to the mass transfer efficiency. Numerical simulation and experimental data were collected to reveal the deformation characteristics and mechanism of a single droplet crossing concave-wall jet. Normalized interfacial energy γ and stretching performance were provided to investigate the droplet deformation process. The results showed that the droplet was stretched along the streamwise direction and shrank along the spanwise direction in the concave-wall jet. The droplet interfacial energy and deformation were the largest when the droplet crossed the jet boundary at t = 0.20 s. The maximum γ value increased with the increase in R0 by 57.3% to 71.4%, and the distance between the droplet and concave wall increased with R0. The Q-criterion was exported to show the increase in the vortex strength with the decrease in R0 at the jet boundary. The pressure distribution inside the droplet showed that the pressure decreased as R0 increased, while the pressure difference increased along the streamwise and wall-normal directions. This study suggested that the droplet breakup was more difficult for a smaller R0, which was beneficial for liquid–liquid heterogeneous separation.
The centrifugal force field in the hydrocyclone was affected by the concave-wall curvature radius R0, the mechanism of droplet deformation was closely related to the mass transfer efficiency. Numerical simulation and experimental data were collected to reveal the deformation characteristics and mechanism of single droplet crossing concave-wall jet. Normalized interfacial energy γ and stretching performance were provided to investigate the droplet deformation process. The results showed that the droplet was stretched along the streamwise and shrank along the spanwise in the concave-wall jet. The droplet interfacial energy and deformation were the largest when the droplet crossed the jet boundary at t = 0.20 s. Maximum γ value increased with the increase of R0 by 57.3% to 71.4%, and the distance between droplet and concave-wall increased with R0. Q-criterion was exported to show the vortex strength increasing as the decrease of R0 in the jet boundary. The pressure distribution inside the droplet showed that the pressure decreased as R0 increased, while the pressure difference increased along the streamwise and wall-normal direction. The study suggested that the droplet breakup was more difficult for the smaller R0, which was beneficial for liquid-liquid heterogeneous separation.
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