Influence of the Inlet Flow Rate on Flow Field Evolution and Mineral Particle Distribution in the First Turn of Spiral Separators

doi:10.12068/j.issn.1005-3026.2023.06.013

Abstract

Abstract: The characteristics and evolution of the flow field in the first turn of the spiral separator play an important role on the movement and separation of mineral particles. For the laboratory-scale spiral separator(300mm)， the turbulence model of RNG k-ε and the multiphase flow model of the volume of fraction(VOF) as well as the Eulerian Multi-fluid VOF were used to investigate the influence of the inlet flow rate on the flow field evolution and the distribution of hematite and quartz particles in the first turn of spiral separators. With the increase of inlet flow rate， the distance to reach the stability of the flow film shape， primary and secondary flows at the outer trough are prolonged. The stratification performance of quartz and hematite is enhanced. Meanwhile， the hematite ore band is correspondingly widened， and the migration of quartz to the outer trough of the thick flow film region is increased. With the increase of the inlet flow rate， the maximum separation efficiency of the first turn increases first and then gets stable. The suitable inlet flow rate of 7L/min can be obtained with the maximum separation efficiency of 61.45%.

Key words: spiral separator; flow field evolution in the first turn; stability; particle distribution; separation efficiency

CLC Number:

TD455

MENG Ling-guo， GAO Shu-ling， ZHOU Xiao-hong， WEI De-zhou. Influence of the Inlet Flow Rate on Flow Field Evolution and Mineral Particle Distribution in the First Turn of Spiral Separators[J]. Journal of Northeastern University(Natural Science), 2023, 44(6): 856-862.

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