A new pressure drop model of gas–liquid cyclone with innovative operation mode

• An innovative operation mode was presented to expand the application of cyclone.
• The effect of split ratio and droplet loading on the pressure drop of cyclone were studied.
• The gas flow pattern of cyclone splitter with different split ratios was investigated.
• A new pressure drop model was established for cyclone splitter with pure or liquid-laden gases.

An innovative operation mode of cyclone, called ‘cyclone splitter’, was presented to extend the application scope of the conventional cyclones. Three cyclone splitters were tested for their performance on the pressure drop with pure and droplet-laden gases. The influencing mechanisms of the split ratio on the pressure drop of a cyclone splitter were studied by numerical simulation. It was found that the split ratio mainly affects the axial velocity distribution in both cyclone body and outlet tubes. Further studies on the effect of droplet loading on the pressure drop were conducted, with the droplet volume concentration of inlet gas ranging from 0.1 to 1.0%. The experimental results showed that the two-phase Euler numbers decrease with the increasing droplet loading. A new pressure drop model of gas–liquid cyclone was established by introducing a liquid-phase correction coefficient. The two-phase Euler numbers predicted by this model were compared with the measured values, and the mean deviation is less than 10%, which indicates that this pressure drop model is suitable for the cyclone splitters with pure or droplet-laden gases. Furthermore, this model can also be used for the conventional cyclones with the split ratio F = 100%.

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