Justification of the Combined Method of Supplying Water to a Centrifugal Concentrator

The scientific and technical problem of further improvement of concentrating devices, in particular, gravity (centrifugal separators), lies in the absence of models convenient for engineering practice for calculating the movement of two-phase mixtures in the working area, and also does not allow explaining a number of emerging effects during the movement of the solid phase at different stages of separation. The object of the research is a centrifugal separator. The purpose of the research is to search for the most acceptable criteria and parameters of the centrifugal concentration process under study and to compile process models describing the real mechanism of mineral particles separation. The research objectives are as follows: to consider the movement of a single solid particle in a liquid stream; to conduct a study in two stages: the first stage is to study the movement of solid particles in an upward flow of pulp; the second stage is to study the movements of a solid particle located near the entrance to the annular cell, to determine the forces acting on it from the side of the carrier flow of liquid and loosening water. The following research methods are used: mathematical modeling of hydrodynamic processes. The equation of solid particles motion in the upward flow of pulp is obtained, which makes it possible to determine the force acting on a solid particle, moving in an ascending spiral along the wall of a centrifugal separator. The constructed mathematical models make it possible to describe the solid phase trajectories in the separator at definite stages of movement, which allows to qualitatively describe the structure of the solid phase distribution in size and specific gravity in the pulp flow ascending along the wall of the separator working cone.