CFD study on the performance of reducing pressure drop holes in cyclone separator N. Prasanna a,⇑ , Karthikeyan Subramanian b , S. Ajay a , T. Rajagopal a , V. Vigneshwaran c a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Erode 638060, Tamil Nadu, India b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Annamalai University, Chidambaram 608002, Tamil Nadu, India c Department of Mechanical Engineering, SMK Fomra Institute of Technology, Chennai 603103, Tamil Nadu, India article info Article history: Received 21 May 2020 Received in revised form 27 September 2020 Accepted 16 November 2020 Available online xxxx Keywords: Vortex finder Cyclone separator REPDH Pressure drop Separation efficiency CFD approach abstract Cyclone separator is the one of the simple and effective equipment for removing the dust or suspended particle in gaseous phase. Even though cyclone separator is effective it has drawbacks such as pressure drop, wear of refractory wall etc. Ample research was carried out in cyclone separator for reducing pres- sure drop and increase separation efficiency. However, many research works lean on design modification of cyclone separator. Whereas this article mainly concentrates on reshaping existing cyclone separator. Reducing pressure drop holes (REPDH) are drilled equidistantly on the circumference of existing cyclone separator vortex finder in four distinct ways termed as 4-holes, 8-holes, 12-holes and 16-holes respec- tively. Cyclone separator with and without REPDH are modelled in SOLIDWORKS 2016 for a stream rate of 500 m 3 /hr. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis are carried for all the cyclone separator with Ansys fluent 18.1 with variety of inlet velocity from 15 m/s to 30 m/s, employing Reynolds stress model as turbulent model. The outcome of CFD analysis illustrate that utilizing REPDH in vortex finder of cyclone separator reduces the pressure drop and increased separation efficiency, is well suited for high throughput models such as swift HT and Stairmand HT models also suited for Swift HE models. 4holes model provide the optimum results for these three models. In general, REPDH design modifications are well suited for cyclone separator models whose ratio of vortex finder diameter to main diameter of cyclone separator is not equal to 0.5. Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer- ence on Advanced Materials Behavior and Characterization. 1. Introduction Cyclone separators were one of the basic requirements in any industry that emits flue gas by burning the solid phase fossil fuels. Cyclone separators are mainly employed in thermal power plants to capture the fly ash in the exhaust gas and mainly employed in Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustor (CFBC). It is operating with two main physics principles; they are centrifugal force and density difference. Centrifugal force is created inside the cyclone separator due to the tangential inlet and the vortex finder provided in it. When centrifugal force is applied to the gas solid mixtures due to the density different between the two phases higher density phase solid is thrown to the outer side of vortex flow. This vortex flow diameter is controlled by diameter of vortex finder. Cyclone separators are preferred in industries are due to its simplicity in fabrication, zero maintenance and flexibility in operation [1]. Pres- sure drop and refractory wear rate been the biggest problem faced in cyclone separator. This work has attempted to reduce the pres- sure drop across the cyclone separator. 2. Design modifications For past four decades large number of researchers performed several experimental and numerical research works for improving the performance of cyclone separator. Many researches concen- trate on improving separation efficiency by compensating pressure drop or vice versa. Performance of cyclone separator is enhanced by modifying the any one or more geometries of cyclone separator [2]. Some of the geometries focused by researchers for remodelling cyclone to further increasing performance are, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.11.425 2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Advanced Materials Behavior and Characterization. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: bemethermal@gmail.com (N. Prasanna). Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr Please cite this article as: N. Prasanna, K. Subramanian, S. Ajay et al., CFD study on the performance of reducing pressure drop holes in cyclone separator, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.11.425