AIR-CORE IMAGING IN CYCLONIC SEPARATORS - IMPLICATIONS FOR SEPARATOR DESIGN AND MODELING

The control and stability of the air core and factors affecting the no w split to the underflow or 'heavy' product are two of the least under stood aspects in the operation of hydrocyclone and dense medium separa tors. Existing methods for assessing these factors using conventional and tomographic measurement instrumentation are described. New results obtained using electrical resistance tomography (ERT) are described f or a pilot-scale large diameter coal dense medium separator (LARCODEMS ). Such data have important implications for the development of (a) em pirical correlations to describe air-core characteristics as a functio n of operational variables (feed rate, feed slurry viscosity, feed den sity etc) and their effect on separation efficiency, and (b) computati onal fluid dynamics models of Liquid and slurry flow in centrifugal se parators.