Hydrocyclones

In an hydrocyclone, a solid/liquid or liquid / liquid mixture is pumped tangentially into a conical vessel. The resulting centrifugal forces cause a vortex to form which encourages the heavier phase to swirl to the bottom of the cone while the lighter phase exit at the top. They have been used extensively in the minerals processing and oil & gas sectors; they are also increasingly being used for more difficult separations such as in the nuclear industry.

The challenge is to ensure that the vortex is formed and maintained to achieve the separation. Without the vortex the operation fails.

The measurement challenge is to actually measure the vortex from outside the hydrocyclone, as again any internal measurement will itself disturb the vortex

Considerable work has been done in applying process tomography to hydrocylones. 

This has encompassed practical studies using process tomography to identify fault conditons, optimal operating conditions and gradual changes in performance. 

Also work has been carried out on computation fluid dynamics (CFD), where process tomography has been used to test and improve CFD code (see below).

An additional area of interest is in parametric reconstruction. The analysis of hydrocyclones was the first area where this technique was successfully used to improve the spatial resolution of reconstructed images

Key benefits include:

• optimise performance through on-line measurement of air core diameter.
   
• diagnose fault conditions.
   
• visualise conditions within hydrocyclones. 

Publications:

Williams et al. (1999) Industrial Monitoring of Hydrocyclone Operation, Minerals Engineering, Vol. 12, No. 10, pp 1245-1252

For more information about this paper, please contact ITS.

Register to access our "Investigating the performance of hydrocyclones" case study available from the Download section on the right.