Abstract

Oil and water dynamic hydrocyclone is one type of facilities that separate two phases or multiple phases applied widely in the fields such as food processing, environmental protection, biological pharmacy, petroleum and chemistry. The dispersed oil droplets in the dynamic oil and water hydrocyclone were often broken into small drops by shear force, which decreased the separation efficiency of dynamic oil-water hydrocyclone greatly. To avoid the breakage of the oil droplets, the turbulence field and the velocity field of the dynamic hydrocyclone were studied by the software of Fluent to analyze the main reason that led to breakage of oil droplets. Results indicated that the deformation of oil droplets was caused by the viscous shear force; the breakage of oil droplets was caused by the Reynolds shear stress and the local pressure fluctuations. The main area that the drops were prone to breakup of the dynamic hydrocyclone is that the rotating grating nearby, the wall boundary layer of the drum and center axis of the drum. Finally, the breakage of oil droplets and emulsification of oil and water in the dynamic hydrocyclone were verified by the experiments.

Keywords:

Droplets breakage, dynamic hydrocyclone, oil and water separation, reynolds shear stress, turbulence intensity,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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The authors have no competing interests.