Effect of Turbulence Models on Numerical Simulation of a Two-Stage Centrifugal Separator

Two-stage centrifugal separators are the last generation of gravity separators for the separation and upgrading of minerals. Gravity upgrading techniques are methods by which a mixture of particles with different dimensions, shapes, and masses can be separated by gravity, centrifugal force, and other forces by the flow of fluid, especially water (or air). The fluid flow inside such separators is always turbulent. The selection of a suitable turbulence model is an important stage for the prediction of the fluid flow pattern in numerical simulation. The purpose of this research was to find the suitable turbulence model for the prediction of hydrodynamic parameters in a two-stage centrifugal separator using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. For this purpose, multiphase simulation of the separator has been performed using five turbulence model including k-e, renormalization group (RNG k-e) and Reynolds stress model (RSM). Air core pattern, velocity distribution and partition curve of discrete phase were used for evaluation of the effect of turbulence model on the flow field. The results of the CFD simulation were validated using experimental data. The difference between the results of RSM simulation with the experimental results for fluid recovery, air-core size in the first and second stage of separator were 4.73%, 4.3% and 5.2%, respectively. The results of turbulence models of k-e and RNG k-e were not in accordance with the experimental results.