Radiotracer experiments and CFD simulation for industrial hydrocyclone performance

Hydrocyclone is a device for solid concentration or selection of solid particles from a liquid-solid mixture. It is widely used in the mineral industry for selection of solid particles from a few to a few hundred micrometers. This paper presents a radiotracer experiment and computational simulation of selection of solid particles in a hydrocyclone of Phi-500 mm, which is used in the industrial copper ore concentration process. The simulation, based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques, allowed obtaining the velocity and concentration distribution for a real mixture flowing in the hydrocyclone. The mixture was composed of water and nine solid phases of different grain sizes. Finally, the selection curve of solid grains was obtained and compared with the experimental radiotracer results.