Accepted Manuscript

Enhancement of cyclone solid particle separation performance based on geo-

metrical modification: numerical analysis

W.I. Mazyan, A. Ahmadi, J. Brinkerhoff, H. Ahmed, M. Hoorfar

PII: S1383-5866(17)31221-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2017.09.040
Reference: SEPPUR 14049

To appear in: Separation and Purification Technology

Received Date: 16 April 2017

Revised Date: 11 September 2017
Accepted Date: 19 September 2017

Please cite this article as: W.I. Mazyan, A. Ahmadi, J. Brinkerhoff, H. Ahmed, M. Hoorfar, Enhancement of cyclone
solid particle separation performance based on geometrical modification: numerical analysis, Separation and
Purification Technology (2017), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2017.09.040

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 Enhancement of cyclone solid particle separation performance
based on geometrical modification: numerical analysis
W. I. Mazyan1 , A. Ahmadi2 , J. Brinkerhoff1 , H. Ahmed3 , M. Hoorfar1 *
1
University of British Columbia, School of Engineering, Kelowna, Canada

2
University of Prince Edward Island, School of Sustainable Design Engineering, Canada

3
American University of Sharjah, School of Engineering, UAE

*Corresponding Author:
Mina Hoorfar
School of Engineering
University of British Columbia
Email: mina.hoorfar@ubc.ca
Tel: (250) 807–8804
Fax: (250) 807-9850

1
Abstract

Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) methods are used to investigate the enhancement of the

solid-gas separation efficiency by adding tangential chambers to the conical section of a

conventional cyclone separator. It is shown that the addition of the tangential chamber enhances

the separation of the particles near the conical section wall, and hence the overall separation

efficiency, particularly for small particles (1-3 m). This enhancement occurs with only an 8%

increase in the pressure drop between the inlet and outlet of the cyclone. The effects of the inlet

velocity and the number of the tangential chambers on the separation efficiency are studied to

find the optimum conditions. It is shown that the increase in the velocity enhances the efficiency

at the expense of an increase in the pressure drop (the increase in the inlet velocity from 14 to 20

m/s doubles the pressure drop). The model also shows that the addition of one tangential

chamber produces a lower dissipation rate of turbulence in the cyclone as compared to multiple

chambers, and hence a higher separation efficiency. The efficiency of the proposed geometrical

modification is also compared against the conventional cyclone design and that with another

geometrical modification reported in the literature (i.e., a cyclone with an elongated conical

length). The results reveal that the proposed modification in this paper enhances the separation

efficiency for small particles (less than 3 m) up to 50% compared to the conventional and the

elongated designs and 15% for large particles (larger than 6 m) compared to the conventional

design. The proposed modification was also compared to the conventional design in terms of the

erosion rate of the cyclone walls, which is increased by 50%.

Keywords: Solid-gas separation, tangential collecting chamber, lateral forces, cyclone separators,

computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

2
1. Introduction
Natural gas is becoming one of the most desired fossil fuel energy sources. Two main reasons

have led to the rapid increase in the demand for natural gas (NG) [1]: (1) natural gas is a more

efficient energy source than oil (e.g. gas energy content is 51.6 kJ/gas compared to 43.6 kJ/g

contained in petroleum) [2]; and (2) the amount of CO2 emitted during NG combustion is lower

than that of oil or other common fossil fuels. The increasing demand for natural gas has led to

many technical innovations within the natural gas supply stream to reduce the overall energy

consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. More specifically, a prodigious number of

technological advances has been made in the treatment processes for the removal of solid

particles (such as fine sand particles and black powder [3]), a key process to reduce pitting on the

downstream equipment.

One of the most efficient methods for solid particle removal from the gas stream is the cyclone

separator (which is used extensively in the NG industry). A cyclone relies on the centrifugal

forces to guide the particles towards the walls, reducing the momentum of the particles and

hence causing their separation at the bottom, while the clean gas is removed from the top of the

cyclone. During this process, however, small particles rebounding from the walls reduce the

efficiency as they can be carried away by the gas to the clean side of the cyclone. The most

significant factor affecting the centrifugal force, and hence the particle separation/collection

efficiency, is the particle momentum. Of course, an increase in the inlet velocity enhances the

separation efficiency, but at the expense of an increased pressure drop in the cyclone and thus

requires higher energy for transportation in the downstream processes. Another way to increase

the velocity of the particles is to decrease the diameter of the cyclone at the bottom, referred to as

the conical section, which enhances the impact of the finer particles to the wall. At the end of the

3
process, however, there are always very small particles escaping with the clean gas. There have

been numerous studies based on either active methods, such as applying magnetic (e.g.,

attracting black powder mixed with the gas stream [4, 5]), mist injection [6] or electrical field

(e.g., attracting charged particles mixed with the gas stream [7, 8]), or passive methods such as

geometrical modifications (e.g., varying the conical section dimensions [9, 10] of the cyclone)

that have been proposed to reduce the number of these escaping particles. The latter is the focus

of this paper in which the proposed geometrical modifications reported in the literature are

discused in the following paragraphs. These studies include numerical modeling (and some

experimental studies) to show the enhancement in the particle separation efficiency as a result of

any geometrical modifications [11-22].

Park et al. [11] investigated numerically the separation efficiency using cyclones in series. In

their study, one cyclone separator is divided into three sections. Each section is composed of a

different diameter decreasing from the top cyclone to the bottom. This setup allows for larger

particles with higher inertial forces to be separated without interfering with the smaller ones

which are separated at a later stage. Their results showed that the first cyclone segregates

particles in the range of 4.5 – 11.0 m, whilst the second setup traps the particles in the size of

3.4 – 7.9 m, and the third cyclone collects the particles in the range of 1.8 – 4.3 m. This design

provides an overlap in terms of the particle size between the three stages, so if a certain particle

size is missed in the earlier stage it will be trapped in the following stages. However, the series

configuration of the cyclones increases the pressure drop across the setup as compared to one

cyclone. Kim et al. [12] implemented helical guiding vanes inside the cyclone to experimentally

study their effect on the separation efficiency. Their design with 6 revolutions of helical vanes at

the inlet flow rate of 15 l/min led to a 27% enhancement in the separation efficiency of 4 m

4
particles. Despite the general enhancement in the efficiency, the design provides a complexity in

the manufacturing process of the cyclone. In addition, only a certain size of the particles follows

the same helical path as provided by the fixed design proposed by Kim et al. [12]. For the sizes

outside this range, the particles impact the vanes leading to an increased turbulence inside the

cyclone. Brar et al. [13] numerically studied the effects of increasing the conical length of the

cyclone on the separation efficiency. This approach increased the separation efficiency by 9.5%

for 3 m particles by increasing the major cyclone cylinder length by 5.5 times of the cyclone

diameter. Moreover, the proposed increase in the conical length reduces the pressure drop by

34% as compared to the conventional design. They also showed that by further increase in the

conical length (6.5 times of the cyclone diameter) the separation efficiency increases by 11%

while the pressure drop reduces to 29% of the conventional design. This is due to the longer

conical section which means a larger angle between the main barrel and the conical section

walls, which makes the flow transition of the gas smoother before it redirects towards the exit.

Xiang et al. [14] also experimentally investigated the effect of the dimensions of the conical

section on the separation efficiency. At the inlet flow rate of 30 l/min, their experimental results

showed that reducing the opening at the bottom of the conical section from 19.4 mm to 11.6 mm

enhances the 4 m particle separation efficiency from 70% to 86%. By increasing the inlet flow

rate to 40 l/min, the efficiency for the same size of the particles was further increased to 92%.

Similar to previous geometrical modifications, this reduction in the cone diameter increases the

pressure drop through the cyclone separator by 15%. In another study, Chuah et al. [15] studied

numerically the effect of the conical dimensions on the cyclone performance. By reducing the

bottom conical diameter from 19.4 mm to 11.6 mm, they achieved a 40% increase in the

efficiency for 1.5 m particles. Despite this enhancement in the separation efficiency, the main

5
disadvantage of this method is an increase in the pressure drop by 42%. Similarly, Wasilewski

[16] investigated the effect of an additional counter cone at the bottom of the cyclone on the

separation efficiency. He studied numerically and experimentally 15 different geometrical

configurations of the proposed counter cone. In each of the studied configurations, the maximum

separation efficiency was enhanced by 3%. However, the maximum pressure drop showed an

increase of 4.1%. In a similar study, Misiulia et al. [17] conducted a numerical study on the

effect of four deswirler on the separation efficiency. Their design reduced the pressure drop by

43% at the cost of increasing the separation cutsize from 1.5 m to 1.72 m. Furthermore,

Parvaz et al. [18] studied the use of vortex finders (in an eccentric way) and their impact on the

flow pattern inside the cyclone. Their numerical results indicate that increasing the eccentricity

up to 10% increases the pressure drop by 32%. Similarly, the separation efficiency was enhanced

by 3% for 1 m particles at 4% eccentricity. Similarly, Demir et al. [19] conducted a numerical

analysis on the effect of the conical heights on the pressure and velocity fields inside the cyclone

separator. They conclude that the conical height should be limited to 1.5 times the barrel

diameter to obtain the least frictional losses in the separator

Another important parameter affecting the separation efficiency in the cyclone separators is the

length of the down comer (which has also been referred to as the vertical tube in literature [20]).

Bryant et al. [21], Zhu and Lee [22] and Mothes [23] emphasized that the down comer controls

the natural vortex length of the flow and particle capture. Qian et al. [20] studied the

enhancement of the cyclone separation efficiency by numerical investigation of the influence of

the prolonged vertical tube attached to the bottom of the conical section at the dust outlet. Their

study showed that an increase of 0.5 m in the length of the vertical tube increases the separation

efficiency by a maximum value of 15% for 3 m particles. Another example is the CFD analysis

6
conducted by Bogodage and Leung [24] on the effect of the down comer height on the

efficiency. Their results showed that increasing the down comer height by 381 mm increases the

separation efficiency by 20% for particles smaller than 3 m. A similar study conducted by Gil

et al. [25] showed the effect of the increase in the down comer height (without the use of the

hopper) enhancing the separation efficiency to 87% for particles smaller than 5 m.

Although most proposed geometrical modifications provide a significant enhancement in the

solid-gas separation in cyclone scrubbers, alternative methods aiming to further increase the

efficiency in “existing” cyclone separation systems must be further explored. The aim of this

study is to increase the separation efficiency of fine particles by including tangential collection

chambers at the conical section in addition to the existing bottom collection chamber. Using a

CFD model, the optimum number of the tangential collection chambers that yield the maximum

collection efficiency for a range of particle sizes is identified, along with the corresponding

pressure losses. Using this model, we identify that the solid-gas separation efficiency in cyclones

can be increased by 50% by adding the tangential chamber.

2. Computational Setup
2.1 Computational domain

In this study, a cyclone with the dimensions shown in Figure 1 is analyzed numerically. The inlet

velocity of the gas-dust mixture is assumed to be 14 m/s (unless mentioned otherwise). To

verify the results of the numerical model (explained in Section 3), the separation efficiency is

verified against the experimental values obtained by Ji et al. [26] for the same cyclone

dimensions. After verification, the model is used to study the effect of the addition of the

tangential chamber on the separation efficiency. The proposed additional tangential chamber is

introduced to create an additional collecting pot for all sized particles. In this method, solid

7
particles in the gas stream reach the conical section by which their rotational velocity increases.

Hence, the particles experience larger centrifugal forces pushing the particles much faster

towards the conical section walls.

Figure 1: The cyclone dimensions (side and front views) used for numerical modeling. The

parameters are: 240 mm, 115 mm, 740 mm, 190 mm, 65 mm, 70

mm, 90 mm (height of the inlet chamber), and 40 mm (width of the inlet chamber).

Figure 2 shows the 3-D model of the conventional cyclone under investigation with the

additional tangential chamber. The tangential chamber is placed in the middle of the conical

section. Since the centrifugal forces on the particles are inversely proportional to their rotational

radius, the centrifugal forces applied on the particles would increase due to the reduced rotational

radius of the conical section. Thus, there are higher chances of smaller particles to reach the

outer walls of the cyclone.

8
 Figure 2: The 3D model of the proposed cyclone with the tangential chamber

2.2 Spatial grid

During the CFD analysis, the solver approximates the medium results of a continuous solution

space using discrete elements [11-14]. A hybrid mesh type is used in the analysis that consists of

unstructured tetrahedral cells in the far- field and clustered triangular prisms near the walls

(inflation layers). Near the boundary layer of the cyclone walls, the inflation-layer growth rate is

set to 1.2 with 5 layers. The cell size has a minimum value of 0.09 mm and a maximum size of

5.7 mm. The size of each element determines the number of mesh cells which the solver will

calculate the pressure and velocity of the flow at. If the mesh cells are sized too large, the error in

pressure and velocity in that cell will be large. On the other hand, reducing the cell sizes to an

infinitesimal dimension will provide more accurate results but will increase the computational

time. Therefore, it is essential that the results obtained from the solver be consistent regardless of

the size and number of the meshed cells (mesh independent results). In this study, the meshing

9
elements number was increased until the separation efficiency curves have consistent results with

different mesh grids. In this paper, the mesh count was varied from 400,000 to 800,000 elements

with a 200,000 elements interval.

3. Numerical Method
This study uses ANSYS Fluent with the particle injection scheme. For the cyclone investigated,

the Reynolds stress turbulence model (RSTM) (i.e., the most complicated of the Reynolds-

Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) models [27]) is used. The advantage of using this model is that

it more accurately accounts for anisotropy of the turbulence, which is the case of the turbulent

flow inside the cyclone due to the influence of flow swirl [27]. The analysis was discretized

using finite volume method with transient simulation having a varying time step from 0.1 to 10 -4

sec. Convective terms are discretized using of the second-order QUICK type scheme, and the

PRESTO method [28] was used to interpolate the cell pressures in an incompressible flow

regime. This method evaluates the pressure of each meshing element at its center rather than

interpolating the center pressure from the corner values, resulting in smaller errors. The

boundary conditions (as shown in Figure 3) include the inlet velocity of 14 m/s as an initial

condition, an outlet pressure of 0 Pa, stationary walls, and a collecting chamber (similar to the

stationary wall but capturing the particles). The scheme used in this study consists of SIMPLEC

scheme [28], which is more accurate than SIMPLE scheme [28]. Solution of the algebraic system

of equations is performed using a W-type algebraic multigrid method in which the convergence

is achieved when the root- mean-square residual decreases below 10-4 to ensure a small error

between subsequent iterations. The total flow time of the simulated flow ranges between 8-12

seconds, which corresponds to approximately 11,000 time steps of the transient solver,

depending on the mesh element count and the shape o f the cyclone (e.g. conventional against the

10
chamber design). Particle injection uses the discrete phase model for particles sizes from 1-6 m

(with a particle density of 1500 kg/m3 ). The discrete phase model couples the particle motion to

the fluid motion by applying kinematic equations on the particle subjected to flow and pressure

forces from the surrounding fluid. Solution of the particle motion commences after the flow

solution has achieved a steady-state. The transient kinematic equations for the particle motion are

integrated for 107 steps, which is sufficient for the fate of all particles to reach a steady state.

Whereas, the flow time step varies from 0.1 to 10 -4 sec. The particles used in the analysis have a

uniform size in the simulations, and cases are simulated with sizes 1-6 m.

To study mesh independency, the separation efficiency was evaluated for mesh element counts

ranging from 400,000 to 800,000. The time required for the computations varied between 3

consecutive days with 400,000 mesh elements to 10 consecutive days with 800,000 mesh

elements using one processor.

11
Figure 3: The 3D model boundary conditions

12
4. Results and Discussions
The separation efficiency, sp , pressure drop through the conical separator (defined as the

difference in the average inlet and exit static pressures), and material erosion rate (defined based

on the mass of the material removed per unit area per second) at the cyclone separator walls

made from carbon steel are used as criteria to evaluate the performance of the proposed

geometrical modification. The larger the value of sp , the larger the enhancement in particulate

capturing by the cyclone. On the other hand, the smaller the pressure drop and the erosion rate,

the more the enhancement in the cyclone lifetime. The separation efficiency is calculated as

 nOutlet 
 SP  1   (1)
 n Inlet 

4.1 Separation Efficiency

The effect of the particle diameter on the separation efficiency (sp ), is investigated here for i)

the conventional (referred to as Stairmand cyclone) design, and ii) the cyclone with the proposed

geometrical modification. As indicated by Cortes and Gil [29], the conventional cyclones have

generally higher efficiency for larger particles. In essence, larger particles experience larger

centrifugal forces due to their larger inertia, and hence, are expected to reach the outer walls

faster. As a particle hits the outer walls of the cyclone, its momentum declines and it falls down

the collecting chamber. Fluent deals with the reflection of particles when impacting the walls by

specifying the impact coefficient value (e.g. an elastic impact coefficient is set to 1). Similarly,

smaller particles can also reach outer walls by increasing the angular velocity and hence

centrifugal forces through the conical section. However, very fine particles may escape with the

gas stream as they can be picked up by the gas easily. The goal of the proposed geometrical

modification is to capture these fine particles prior to their escape through the gas stream.

13
Model verification and mesh independency analysis – To verify the CFD modeling results, the

separation efficiency values obtained using the model are compared against the experimental

results reported by Ji et al. [26] (see Figure 4). The modeling results were determined for three

different mesh cell counts to determine mesh independency. The results show that the maximum

error between the experimental [26] and CFD results (regardless of the number of the meshing

elements) occurs for 3 m particles. The smaller particles (1-2 m) have high tendency to escape

as they reach the exit; while larger particles (4-6 m) have high tendency to settle at the bottom.

The 3 m particles, on the other hand, have high tendency to rotate inside the cyclone before

they either escape or are captured. This can result in the observed difference between the CFD

and experimental results for this size of the particles.

14
 To conduct the mesh independency analysis, the difference between the CFD and experimental

results for each mesh resolution is quantified. The difference between the 400,000 and 600,000

1.0
0.9
0.8
Collection Efficiency

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Particle Diameter ( m)
element cases are too large to consider the results mesh independent. For example, for 5 m

particles, the difference between the errors obtained for two meshing elements is 10% which is in

the same order of the magnitude of the separation efficiency enhancement being sought.

Increasing the mesh counts from 600,000 to 800,000 elements reduces the magnitude of the error

by less than 2.1% for 4-m particles but at the expense of increasing significantly the

computational time (by 150%). Table 1 presents the relative error between particle sizes against

the mesh size. Thus, 600,000 meshing elements is chosen for further analysis.

Figure 4: Comparison between the experimental separation efficiency (Ji et al. [26]), CFD

modeling conducted at 400,000 meshing elements, 600,000 meshing elements and 800,000

meshing elements for a conventional design

15
Table 1: Relative errors for particle size against mesh size

Particle size 400,000 600,000 800,000 Relative error difference between

in m cells cells cells 600,000 and 800,000 cells

1 0 0 0 0

2 14.5 0.70 1.70 1.00

3 18.6 17.6 16.8 0.80

4 8.00 0.90 3.00 2.10

5 15.4 5.00 6.00 1.00

6 4.00 2.00 0.60 1.40

Number of the tangential chambers – Using 600,000 meshing elements, the separation efficiency

of the proposed geometrical modification (involving the addition of a tangential chamber) is

determined for the range of the particle sizes mentioned above. The addition of the tangential

chamber at the conical section of the cyclone is expected to enhance the separation efficiency of

smaller particles as they reach the walls. As particles enter the conical section, their radial

velocities increase due to the decrease of the rotational radius. Furthermore, the centrifugal

forces applied at the particles increase due to the increased radial velocities. Thus, particles from

all ranges have higher tendencies to reach the outer walls of the conical section. Moreover, the

location to place the tangential chamber is chosen to be just above the lowest part of the conical

section. Further optimization of the location of the tangential chamber is needed and will be

16
performed in the future studies. In this proposed modification, the small- sized particles are

trapped and collected inside the tangential chamber before they have a chance to gain their

momentum again. Figure 5 shows the separation efficiency of the proposed modification as

compared to those reported by Ji et al. [26]. Also, the effect of the number of the tangential

chambers number on the separation efficiency is shown in this figure. Figures 6 shows the

turbulence eddy dissipation rate inside the cyclone separator space. In general, the addition of the

tangential chambers increases the separation efficiency as compared to that reported by Ji et al.

[26]. However, the number of the chambers affects the separation efficiency; it is observed that

adding one tangential chamber to the conical section results in higher efficiency than the case of

two or three tangential chambers. This is attributed to the increased turbulence at the inlet of

each of the chambers. Figures 6 shows the turbulence eddy dissipation rate at the cross section of

the chambers. It is observed that for the case of one chamber, the maximum value of the

turbulence dissipation rate is smaller (12770 m2 /s3 ) than the two and three chamber cases

(15580 m2 /s3 and 14220 m2 /s3 , respectively). For the case of three chambers, the eddy value is

smaller, and hence the separation efficiency is higher, than those values obtained for the case of

adding two chambers. This is likely due to the reduced distance between the openings.

Figure 7 shows that at the inlet of the chambers the largest velocity corresponds to the case of

one chamber (7.686 m/s), followed by three and two chambers (6.52 m/s and 4.8 m/s,

respectively). It is obvious from the velocity contours that the fluid flow has the farthest

propagation inside the chamber for the case of one chamber. For the case of adding two

chambers, on the other hand, the fluid flow seems to have the least propagation inside the

chamber. Due to the increased turbulence dissipation rate at the inlets of the chambers in the

two- and three-chamber cases, it seems the velocity near the walls and the chambers decreases,

17
yielding the reduced flow penetration into the chamber in those chases. As noted before, the

decrease in the velocity directly reduces the centrifugal forces. The reduction in centrifugal

forces reduces the ability of solid particles (especially smaller ones) to reach the outer walls and

the collection chambers.

1.0
0.9
Collection Efficiency

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Particle Diameter ( m)

Figure 5: The comparison between the experimental results reported by Ji et al. [26], CFD results

of a conventional design, CFD results for the proposed geometrical modification involving the

addition of one tangential chamber, CFD results for the case of two chambers, CFD results for

the case of three chambers

18
Figure 6: The turbulence eddy dissipation for the cases of adding one, two, or three tangential

chambers

19
Figure 7: The fluid velocity contours for the cases of adding one, two, or three tangential

chambers

20
Velocity at the inlet of the cyclone - Increasing the inlet velocity increases the separation

efficiency as mentioned in the introduction. Using the numerical model, this effect was studied

for two inlet velocity values of 14 and 20 m/s applied to the geometrical modification with one

tangential chamber. These results, shown in Figure 8, were compared against the experimental

results that Ji et al. [26] reported for these inlet velocities. The results show that increasing the

inlet velocity from 14 to 20 m/s increases the separation efficiency for the design with one

tangential chamber for all particle sizes. The largest increase of 25% is achieved for the 2 m

particles and the smallest increase of 1% is achieved for the 6 m particles. However, this

improvement incurs a significant rise in the pressure drop, with increases of up to 110% as

shown in Section 4.2.

Length of the conical section – Among different geometrical modifications reported in literature

(see Introduction), the vertical length of the conical section seems to yield the highest separation

efficiency gains [13, 14]. The CFD model is used to compare the separation efficiency for the

range of the particles studied here of the cases of: i) the conventional cyclone design, ii) the

design with an elongated vertical cone, and iii) the design with one tangential chamber. Figure 9

demontrates that elongating the cone enhances the efficiency for particle sizes larger than 5 m

as compared to the conventional and elongated designs. The addition of one tangential chamber,

however, enhances the efficiency for all ranges of particles (especially the small particles)

compared to the conventional and elengated designs. Specifically, the addition of a tangential

chamber at the conical section of the cyclone increases the separation efficiency for particles less

than 3 m by 50% compared to the conventional and elongated designs and 15% for particles

larger than 5 m compared to the conventional and elongated designs.

21
 1.0

0.9

0.8
Collection Efficiency

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Particle Diameter ( m)

Figure 8: The effect of the velocity at the inlet of the cyclone on the separation efficiency for the

conventional design and the design with one tangential chamber

22
 1.0

0.9

0.8
Collection Efficiency

0.7

0.6

0.5 Conventional design

0.4
Geometrical modification by
0.3
elongating the cone
0.2
Geometrical modification by
0.1 adding one chamber

0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Particle Diameter ( m)

Figure 9: The comparison between the separation efficiency obtained numerically for the

conventional design, conventional design with an elongated cone length, and the conventional

design with the addition of a tangential chamber proposed here

4.2 Pressure Drop

The effect of the proposed modifications to the cyclone separator on the pressure drop is

investigated here using the developed CFD model. Here, the pressure drop is defined as the

difference in the average static pressure between the inlet and exit boundaries of the cyclone

separator. Table 2 gives the pressure drop of i) the experimental results of Ji et al. [26] reported

for the conventional cyclone at the inlet velocity of 14 m/s, ii) the CFD modeling result for the

conventional design at 14 m/s, iii) the CFD result for the case of adding one tangential chamber

at 14 m/s, and iv) the CFD result obtained for the case of adding one tangential chamber at 20
23
m/s. The efficiency enhancement using one tangential chamber at 14 m/s inlet velocity is 50%

for 1 m particles (Figure 5) at the cost of only an 8% increase in the pressure drop. On the other

hand, the efficiency enhancement using one tangential chamber at 20 m/s inlet velocity is 74%

for 1 m particles size, but with a significant pressure drop increase of 132%.

Table 2: Pressure drop for CFD and experimental modeling results

Pressure Drop (Pa)

14 m/s Inlet Velocity 20 m/s Inlet Velocity
CFD modeling for a CFD modeling with CFD Modeling with
Ji et al. [26]
conventional design one chamber added one chamber added
1000 1044 1127 2424

4.3 Erosion Rate

Cyclone separators in industrial operations may fail due to the repeated particle impacts on the

separator walls, which eventually cause erosion of the wall material [29]. The effect of the

proposed model on the material erosion rate inside the cyclone separator is investigated

numerically to ensure that it will not negatively affect the erosion rate. Figures 10 and 11

represent the erosion rates of the walls due to the particles impact and the velocity profiles inside

the cyclone, respectively. The results are presented for the cases of the conventional and

modified designs. The addition of the tangential chamber reduces the maximum erosion rates

inside the cyclone from 5.410-8 kg/m2 s for the conventional design to 2.510-8 kg/m2 s for the

tangential modification. This decrease in the erosion rate can be explained due to the decrease in

the absolute velocity at the walls of the cyclone from 5.6 m/s to 5.2 m/s (see Figure 11). The

decrease of the absolute velocity at the cyclone walls is a result of the turbulence created near the

chambers. The solid impact erosion rate can be evaluated using Eq. (2) [30]

24
 1 vp
2
1  vw
2

Er   (2)
Ew Ep

where v w, Ew, v p and Ep are the cyclone wall and particle poison’s ratio and Young’s modulus,

respectively

Figure 12 represents the radial and axial velocity contours inside the cyclone separator. The

tangential velocity shows a decrease at the location of the chamber (shown in the figure with a

square box) due to the backflow caused by the tangential chamber. The axial velocity, in

addition, shows a decrease in its value near the chamber walls due to the same reason. Both of

these reductions explain the absolute velocity reduction near the walls in the overall velocity

contour plots shown in Figure 12

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Figure 10: Locations of erosion in (a) conventional , and (b) the proposed design including one

tangential chamber. The maximum erosion rates for (a) and (b) designs are 5.410-8 kg/m2 s and

2.510-8 kg/m2 s, respectively.

26
 (a) (b)

Figure 11: Velocity profile for (a) conventional, and (b) the design chamber added

Figure 12: Tangential and axial velocities contours for conventional and chambered cyclones

27
5. Cost Analysis
Although cyclone separators are less efficient than other types of filters such as bag filters, they

are commonly used to remove the bulk of the solid particles in the upstream of the NG plants due

to their low maintenance cost as compared to bag filters [3, 11, 12]. For example, cartridge filters

(bag filters) cause an increase in the pressure drop over time due to the blockage of the filter

element [3, 11, 12]. This blockage requires an additional annual maintenance cost as well as the

installation of a second cartridge in parallel to the main one to avoid shutdown of the pipeline

[3]. On the other hand, cyclone separators have a fixed pressure drop over time while providing a

reliable filtration mechanism [3, 11, 12]. One major change to the cost of the cyclone due to the

geometrical modification proposed here is the chamber.

6. Conclusions
The feasibility of adding tangential chambers at the conical section of a Stairmand-type cyclone

was investigated in terms of its effect on the efficiency of the overall solid-gas separation

efficiency, pressure drop, and erosion rate. The CFD modeling results indicate that the addition

of one tangential chamber increases the particle separation efficiency by a maximum of 50%

over current cyclone designs, with the largest improvements obtained for particle sizes below 3

m. The proposed modification increases the pressure drop by 8% at the designed inlet velocity

while reducing the erosion rate by 54%. Thus, the proposed modification makes the cyclone a

powerful and at the same time low cost tool for particle separation that is critical for minimizing

damage to the downstream equipment in oil and gas, refinery, chemical and polymer industries.

Besides the addition of a tangential chamber, current industries can also benefit from an

increased separation efficiency by increasing the inlet velocity and/or having an elongated

28
conical section. Further optimization of the location of the tangential chamber is needed and will

be performed in the future studies.

29
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 Cyclone separation efficiency is enhanced using tangential chamber.

 Tangential chambers increase separation efficiency by 50% for 1 µm particles.

 Pressure drop increases only by 8%.

34