THERMAL HYDRODYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF A COUNTERCURRENT GAS CENTRIFUGE

The separative effect in a centrifuge is amplified when a countercurre nt in the axial direction is added to the centrifugal field. The mchan isms used to create this countercurrent are obtained with the gas dece leration near to the waste scoop, mechanical effect, and temperature d istribution on the rotor walls, thermal effect. This work treats the i nfluence of the thermal countercurrent on the centrifuge separative pe rformance. A complete centrifuge model is presented, therefore this st udy passes by the hydrodynamical and thermal phenomena analysis. For t he accomplishment of this work the gas how is simulated inside the rot or, initially with arbitrary thermal boundary conditions. Then a struc tural thermal model is developed to supply the realistic boundary cond itions for the hydrodynamical model. This procedure, with the integrat ed models, allows to propose and to evaluate configuration changes for a centrifuge minimizing the laboratory phase tests. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.