Evaluation of numerical schemes for dispersed phase modeling of cyclone separators

Abstract

This study investigates the performance of different discretization schemes for simulation of dispersed phase of cyclone separators by using Reynolds stress turbulence model facility of CFD code Fluent 6.3.26. The continuous flow inside the cyclone separator is simulated by solving Reynolds averaged three dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes equation in Eulerian reference frame whereas the dispersed phase is modeled using Lagrangian approach. Analysis of computed results shows that the high order discretization schemes give satisfactory performance for simulation of dispersed particles of all size. However the prediction of trapezoidal discretization scheme is found to be marginally better than that of the Runge-Kutta scheme. The low order schemes and combination of low order and high order schemes failed to predict accurately the collection efficiency of the smaller dispersed particles. The results suggest that the CFD method using trapezoidal scheme for discretization of equation of motion of dispersed particles is the optimum choice for simulation of the second phase of cyclone separators.