A study on the classification performance of water-injection hydrocyclone

Aiming at the problem of fine particles entrainment in the underflow of hydrocyclone during the metal grinding classification process, a water-injection hydrocyclone was proposed to improve the classification efficiency. Through external injection of water on the wall surface of the cone section, the particles settling in the region were loosely graded so that the fine particles settled in the wall surface returned to the inner swirl again, thus reducing their entry into the underflow. Numerical simulation was used to explore the differences in the internal flow field characteristics and separation performance of the hydrocyclone after adding the water-injection structure. Then the industrial tests were conducted on the classification performance of the water-injection hydrocyclone. Numerical results showed that compared with the conventional hydrocyclone, the static pressure, tangential and axial velocity of the fluid inside the water-injection hydrocyclone increased, while the turbulence intensity decreased. The experimental results showed that with the increase of water-injection flow rate, the content of -74 μm particles in the underflow of water-injection hydrocyclone first decreased and then increased, and the comprehensive classification efficiency increased and then decreased accordingly. Compared with the conventional hydrocyclone, the content of -74 μm particles in the underflow of the water-injection hydrocyclone was reduced from 26.34% to 23.95%, and the comprehensive classification efficiency was increased from 69.22% to 73.03%, which mitigated the phenomenon of fine particles entrainment in the underflow.