A computational and experimental study of the dewatering hydrocyclone

Small, Derek Matthew (1999) A computational and experimental study of the dewatering hydrocyclone. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This thesis describes research undertaken to further the current understanding of the dewatering hydro cyclone. Several simplified analytical models of different aspects of flow in the dewatering hydro cyclone are developed in an attempt to illustrate key features of single and multi component flow in the device. The distribution of the oil and water components within a operational dewatering hydro cyclone is presently not well understood. Since the opacity of the oil component makes optical methods impractical this thesis presents experimental work making use of electrical impedance tomography to determine the distribution of oil and water in a cylindrical duct, as a preliminary to the application of this technique to the hydro cyclone. An extensive computational study of a dewatering hydro cyclone geometry operating at different flow rates is described and compared with experimental data. A key feature of such models is the way in which turbulence is modelled. This thesis presents a series of models to demonstrate and quantify the inadequacy of isotropic turbulence models for modelling the strongly swirling flows in a hydrocyclone. The use of Lagrangian and Eulerian multi-component models is also discussed.

Text

707672.pdf - Version of Record

Available under License University of Southampton Thesis Licence.

Download (2MB)