COMPUTATIONAL MODELLING OF

PARTICLE – FLUID DYNAMICS IN

COMMINUTION AND CLASSIFICATION
 INTRODUCTION TO COMMINUTION
 Comminution is the process of reducing size of solid particles primarily
by crushing and grinding.
 Hydrocyclone is the most widely used classifier in comminution circuits
especially with ball mill.
 Hydrocyclone utilises fluid pressure energy to create rotational motion.
 Coarse particles with high centrifugal forces move towards the wall and
get discharged as overflow.
 As low pressure region persists at the centre ,air from apex of the
cyclone sucked and forms an air core
 We offen use DENSE MEDIUM CYCLONE (DMC) , where water medium
is replaced by ultrafine ferrosilicon powder dispersed in water. For
example in coal prepartions.
 Grinding efficiency depends upon the tumbling mill performance and on
the recirculation load result of the associated classifier in the circuit
 CFD MODELLING IN INDUSTRIAL
CYCLONES

 Initial modelling works are on hydrocyclones are two

dimensional and turbulence models and multiphase
models with unrealistic assumptions because of low
computation power.
 Later on with high computation power, the continuity
and momentum equations could be solved with the
aid of three dimensional models based on realistic
assumptions in turbulence models and multiphase
models.
 TURBULENCE MODELLING

 Hydrocyclones operating at high feed pressures induce turbulence to the

flow.
 There are different models based on selectivity of the conditions like k-e
model, RNG k-e model, conventional prandtl mixing length.
 But these are found to be deviated against to the experimental values
because of equality of reynolds stresses in all directions while developing
models.
 Therefore they failed to capture the asymmetries associated with high
turbulence
 Then there were comparison between RNG k-e ,RSM and LES model in which
LES flow field predictions are very close to the experiments but it require
high computational power so RSM is sutiable with low computational power
 To be continued…
 Shear stress transport(SST) with
Curvature Correction(CC) model
predictions are over predicted and
RSM predictions are under
predicted.
 Then VOF coupled with LES and RSM
turbulence model gave more close to
the experiment in which VOF –LES is
very much closer to the experiment.
 It was concluded that the usage of
suitable turbulence model is more
crucial than the multiphase model
especially for two phase flow field.
 MULTIPHASE MODELLING
 Along with turbulence, the flow in hydrocyclone and dense medium
cyclone also consists of multiple phases such as air/free surface, water and
a number particle phases in varying degrees of density and size.
 Multiphase models employed in simulation studies are divided into
Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches.
 In the Lagrangian Particle Tracking, the solid phases are tracked by
integrating a force balance around particles of different size and density.
 The lagrangian approach is usually limited to 10% by weight.
 In this DPM model, slight deviations are observed near the tail ends of
partition curve for fine and coarse particles
 To overcome this drawback , a Dense DPM (DPM) model has been
developed by assuming a parcel concept to represent a definite number of
particles instead of one particle.there by enhancing the computional
efficinecy.
 In DDPM model, the effect air core was neglected on the seperation
efficinecy of hydrocyclone.
 EULERIAN-EULERIAN MULTIPHASE MODEL

 It considers both the liquid and solid

phases as interpenetrating continua in
which separate continuity and
momentum equation is solved for each
individual phase.
 This approach is adopted for the systems
with very high solid concentration.
 Cut size and sharpness of separation
predictions were deviated at and above
30% by weight of solids.
 Here also the effect of air core on the
performance of hydrocyclone was not
taken into consideration.
 Modified ASM is used widely than VOF as
VOF is restricted to the two phase air
because of its inherent assumptions.
 CFD –DEM MODELLING

 The main drawback of DPM model was the elimination of simultaneous

effect of magnetite and coal particles each other.
 To overcome this drawback advanced modelling(CFD-DEM) is adopted for
modelling the medium segregation and coal particles simultaneously.
 the conventional CFD model was considered for magnetite segregation
prediction and DEM to model the flow of coal particles. At each time step
DEM provides information about the velocities, positions of each particle
which was utilised to evaluate volume fraction, particle fluid interactions
 Implimentation of CFD –DEM is more challenging in hydrocyclones as the
particle sizes are much smaller and shapes are non-spherical.
Graph left shows between ASM and experiment and graph right shows
comparison of CFD efficiency curves for various feed solids content
THANK YOU