Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

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Chemical Engineering Science

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Computational study of the multiphase ow in a dense medium cyclone:

Effect of particle density
K.W. Chu a, B. Wang a,c, A.B. Yu a,n, A. Vince b
a

Laboratory for Simulation and Modelling of Particulate Systems, School of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Elsa Consulting Group Pty Ltd., PO Box 8100, Mount Pleasant, QLD 4740, Australia
c
Key Laboratory of Western Chinas Environmental Systems, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, PR China
b

a r t i c l e i n f o

abstract

Article history:
Received 29 August 2011
Received in revised form
22 December 2011
Accepted 6 January 2012
Available online 20 January 2012

Dense medium cyclone (DMC) is widely used to upgrade run-of-mine coal in the coal industry. The ow
within it is very complicated, with four phases (water, air, ne magnetite and coal) involved. To date,
the underlying fundamentals are not well understood. In this work, the effect of particle density on the
ow in a DMC is numerically studied to understand why coal type matters in DMC operation. The
model used is a combined approach of discrete element method (DEM) and computational uid
dynamics (CFD). In the model, the motion of discrete mineral particles is obtained by DEM and the ow
of medium (mixture of water, air and ne magnetites) phase by the traditional CFD. The simulated
results are analysed in terms of medium and coal ow patterns, and particleuid, particleparticle and
particlewall interaction forces. It is shown that particles of different densities have signicantly
different effects on the ow in a DMC. The operational pressure, medium split and differential all
decrease with the increase of particle density. The underlying mechanism is that different trajectories
of particles of different densities lead to different spatial distributions of particleuid interaction
forces which in turn yield different effects on the ow. The ndings are useful to better understanding,
designing and operating this complicated multiphase ow system.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Dense medium cyclone
Multiphase ow
Coal type
Computational uid dynamics
Discrete element method
Separation

1. Introduction
Dense medium cyclone (DMC) is a high-tonnage device that
has been widely used to upgrade run-of-mine coal in the modern
coal industry by separating gangue from product coal. It is also
used in a variety of mineral plants treating iron ore, dolomite,
diamonds, potash and leadzinc ores. In this work, DMC refers to
that used in the coal industry. The density of valuable coal
particles is generally smaller than 1500 kg/m3 while that of
rejects or gangue particles larger than 1500 kg/m3. Therefore, a
uid of density about 1500 kg/m3 is needed for effective separation. This is usually achieved by use of a mixture of water and ne
magnetite particles, and the mixture is called as medium in
practice. Thus, multiple phases are involved in DMC operation,
including air, water, coal and magnetic/nonmagnetic particles of
different sizes, densities and other properties.
The general working principle of DMC has been well documented in the literature (King and Juckes, 1984; Svarovsky, 1984;
Wills, 1992; Chu et al., 2009a). As schematically shown in
Fig. 1(a), the feed, which is a mixture of raw coal and magnetite

Corresponding author. Tel.: 61 2 93854429; fax: 61 2 93855956.

E-mail address: a.yu@unsw.edu.au (A.B. Yu).

0009-2509/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ces.2012.01.007

particles carried by water, enters tangentially near the top of the

cylindrical section, thus forming a strong swirling ow. Centrifugal forces cause the refuse or high ash particles to move towards
the wall, where the axial velocity points predominantly downward, and to discharge through the spigot. The lighter clean coal
particles, driven by the pressure gradient force and radial uid
drag force, move towards the longitudinal axis of the DMC, where
there is usually an air core, and the predominant axial velocity
points upward and the coal exits through the vortex nder.
Despite widely used, problems are frequently encountered in
the operation of DMCs. Typical problems are the so-called surging phenomenon which may happen frequently and can lead to
a large portion of coal product reporting to reject (Wood, 1990),
vortex nder overloading (Hu et al., 2001), severe wearing of DMC
walls (Zughbi et al., 1991) and difculties in scale-up and system
instability. Physical and mathematical modelling has been recognised as a useful approach to tackle these problems.
The experimental work on DMC can be divided into two areas.
One is the measurement of macroscopic parameters, such as the
pressure drop, separation efciency, medium owrate and density at both overow and underow, under different geometrical,
operational and material conditions. The other is that of microscopic information such as the pressure, density, velocity and coal
particles distributions within a DMC. Macroscopic parameters are

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K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Fig. 1. Schematic (a), geometry (b) and mesh (c) representation of the simulated large DMC (Dc 1000 mm).

important for process control while microscopic information is

helpful to understand the ow mechanisms. Majority of the
previous studies have been devoted to the quantication of key
macroscopic parameters under different conditions (Scott, 1990;
Wood, 1990; Restarick and Krnic, 1991; He and Laskowski, 1994;
Ferrara et al., 2000; Hu et al., 2001; Sripriya et al., 2007; Magwai
and Bosman, 2008). However, few studies have been made on the
microscopic parameters of the ow in a DMC. Probably the most
interesting work is the measurement of density distribution of
medium in a DMC by Galvin and Smitham (1994) using X-ray
tomography and by Subramanian (2002) using gamma ray tomography (GRT). It is very difcult to measure the internal ow and
force structures. Without such microscopic information, DMC is
largely operated as a black-box operation. This is particularly true
for large DMCs where the cost for physical experiments is very
high, even limited to macroscopic studies. A recent study has
indicated that the measurement errors can be quite substantial
(Vince, 2008).
Fundamental modelling is considered an important omission
in the development of DMC units. Deciencies in design, which
may be difcult to identify in experimental studies because of the
difculty in conducting controlled experiments, can be readily
identied and corrected using a mechanistic approach. Moreover, a
fundamental approach is able to provide microscopic information in
DMCs, thus resulting in a better understanding of the working
mechanisms. In general, the mathematical descriptions required to
model DMCs fall into two main aspects: one is the modelling of
medium ow and the other one that of coal particle ow, while
allowing for their mutual interaction. For the modelling of medium
ow, computational uid dynamics (CFD) is an important technique
in the literature (Zughbi et al., 1991; Brennan, 2003; Narasimha et al.,
2007b; Wang et al., 2009a, 2009b, 2011). Theoretically, the coal ow
can also be treated as continuum phase and modelled by CFD
approach, used in the so-called two uid model (TFM) (Anderson
and Jackson, 1967; Gidaspow, 1994; Enwald et al., 1996). In the TFM
approach, the motion of the uid and particles in a particleuid
system is described as though they were interpenetrating continua
(Anderson and Jackson, 1967). This approach is preferred in process
modelling and applied research because of its computational convenience. Indeed, it has been used widely, the gassolid ow in
uidisation in particular (Anderson and Jackson, 1967; Bouillard

et al., 1989; Sinclair and Jackson, 1989; Enwald et al., 1996;

Goldschmidt et al., 2001). However, its effective use heavily depends
on constitutive or closure relations and the momentum exchange
between particles of different type. Such relations have not been
established yet, particularly for complicated ow systems like that
in a DMC.
On the other hand, compared with the CFD model for continuous uids, the ow of coal particles has been modelled by use
of the so-called Lagrangian particle tracking (LPT) method
(Suasnabar and Fletcher, 2003; Narasimha et al., 2007b; Wang
et al., 2009a, 2009b) and discrete element method (DEM)
(Chu et al., 2009a, 2009b). The LPT approach tracks the trajectories of individual particles on a given uid ow eld and is able
to qualitatively study the effect of some important parameters of
DMCs. However, it cannot satisfactorily describe the effects of
solids on medium ow and particleparticle interaction. This can
be overcome by DEM that has been widely used to study the
fundamentals of various particleuid ows including the ow in
DMCs (Tsuji et al., 1992; Xu and Yu, 1997; Li et al., 1999; Rhodes
et al., 2001; Kafui et al., 2002; Yu and Xu, 2003; Limtrakul et al.,
2004; Di Renzo and Di Maio, 2007; Tsuji, 2007; Kuang et al., 2008;
Malone and Xu, 2008; Chu et al., 2009a, 2009b). However, with
the current computational capability, it is not possible to simulate
the multiphase ow in a practical DMC without simplications.
Therefore, different approaches have been used in the CFDDEM
studies of this complicated ow system. Chu et al. (2009a)
proposed a CFDDEM one-way coupling method where the
reaction of particle ow on medium ow is ignored. They
demonstrated that the model is able to capture the key ow
features in a DMC, such as the different behaviours of particles of
different sizes or densities, the effect of medium-to-coal (M:C)
ratio, and the so-called surging phenomenon. Their results also
indicate that the pressure gradient force (PGF) is the dominant
force for separation and the particleparticle interaction force is
important in DMC operation. One difculty here is that coal
particles have sizes ranging from 0.5 to 50 mm and the number
of particles in a practical DMC system is huge (more than
1 billion), which makes it impossible to simulate the system with
available computation resource. To overcome this problem, Chu
et al. (2009b) employed the concept of parcel particles, similar to
that used by Patankar and Joseph (2001) in their uidisation

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

simulation, in their large scale DMC study where the CFD and
DEM are two-way coupled. They showed this approach can
produce results comparable the measurements reasonably and
can be used to study some process phenomena. However, this
approach has various problems, although its principles are in
essence the same as those in the CFDDEM modelling. First, the
properties of a parcel particle had to be assumed, adding uncertainty in result generation. Secondly, it cannot be used generally.
Because a parcel particle must well represent many particles of
the same type, it is invalid when particles of the same type
behaviour differently. Most importantly, since parcel particles are
not real, it is unlikely that the approach can be effectively used to
understand the fundamentals. To overcome these problems, one
should use real particles in the CFDDEM simulations. However,
limited by the current computational capability, such simulations
may have to be conducted under simplied process conditions. The
results, on the other hand, can be used to elucidate the fundamentals to develop important know-why knowledge. The present
work employs this strict CFDDEM simulation technique and
represents a research effort in this direction.
One important question to answer is why coal type matters in
the operation of DMCs. In practice, coal type differs from plant to
plant and can be characterised by particle density and size
distributions, surface properties and shape of coal particles.
Of these, coal particle density distribution can be considered to
be the most important. In fact, it has been used to distinguish two
major coal types, i.e., coking coal and thermal coal. It is known
that coal type affects the performance of DMC. This can be
reected by the experimental observation that for different type
of coal, the effect of coal feed rate differs (Brien and Pommier,
1964; Deurbrouck and Hudy, 1972; Restarick and Krnic, 1991;
Sripriya et al., 2001, 2007). However, to date, no systematic study
has been made to examine the effect of coal type. To overcome
this gap, we recently studied the effect of coal particle density
distribution using a CFDDEM model (Chu et al., 2009b). In that
work, it was found that, when the mass ow rates of both
medium and solid phases are kept constant, both the medium
and solids ow are sensitive to the coal particle density distribution. Different coal particle density distributions are represented
by different composites of different amounts of particles of
certain density. The ow changes when the amount of particles
of certain density is changed. This actually suggests that coal
particles of different density have different effect on the ow.
However, the study of Chu et al. (2009b) is largely preliminary
and has obvious deciencies. For example, parcel particles were
used in their simulation, which may induce uncertainties in
results as discussed above. And only a few simulations were run
corresponding to three different types of coal, which is not
systematic enough for fundamental understanding.
In this work, a strict CFDDEM two-way coupling approach,
without the use of parcel particle concepts, will be used to
systematically study the effect of particle density. A series of
simulations will be performed under controlled conditions where
only particles of one specic density are fed into a DMC in each run,

125

with results compared to those obtained with a full particle density

distribution. The simulated results are analysed in terms of medium
and coal ow patterns, and particleuid, particleparticle and
particlewall interaction forces. Their link to the process performance characterised by parameters such as operational pressure,
medium split and differential is explored. The ndings should be
useful to better understanding, designing and operating this complicated multiphase ow system.

2. Simulation method
In the CFDDEM model, the motion of particles is modelled as
a discrete phase, by applying Newtons laws of motion to
individual particles, while the ow of uid is treated as a
continuous phase, described by the local averaged Navier
Stokes equations on a computational cell scale. The approach
has been recognised as an effective method to study the fundamentals of particleuid ow by various investigators (Yu and Xu,
2003; Zhu et al., 2007). The mathematical formulation of the CFD
DEM model has been well documented in the literature (Xu and
Yu, 1997; Zhu et al., 2007; Chu et al., 2009a; Wang et al., 2009a;
Zhou et al., 2010). Therefore, only a brief description of the model
is given in this work.
Recognising that the ow in a DMC is quite complicated, the
modelling was divided into three steps, as shown in Fig. 2. The
rst two steps are devoted to solving the medium slurry ow and
the third step particle ow. The continuum medium ow is
calculated from the continuity and the NavierStokes equations
based on the local mean variables dened over a computational cell.
These are given by
@rf e
@t

rUrf eu 0

and
@rf eu
@t

rUrf e uu rPFpf rUes rf e g rUrf u0 u0

2

where e, u, u , t, rf, P, Fpf , s, and g are, respectively, the porosity, the

mean and the uctuating uid velocity, the time, the uid density,
the pressure, the volumetric uidparticle interaction force, the uid
viscous stress tensor, and the acceleration due to gravity.
P
Fpf 1=V cell ki cell
1 f pf ,i , where fp f,i is the total uid force on
particle i, kc is the number of particles in a CFD cell, and Vcell is the
volume of the CFD cell. ru0 u0 is the Reynolds stress term due to
turbulence.
In this work, the RSM model in the commercial CFD software
package (ANSYS Fluent 6.2) is employed. The model is originally
proposed by Launder et al. (1975), with a linear pressurestrain
model given according to the work by Gibson and Launder (1978)
and Launder (1989), and the turbulent diffusive transport term
modelled according to the work by Lien and Leschziner (1994)
to overcome numerical instabilities in the model by Daly and
0

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the modelling approach.

126

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Harlow (1970). Note that the RSM model has been successfully
used to model DMCs by other investigators (Narasimha et al.,
2007a; Wang et al., 2009a). In fact, Narasimha et al. (2007b) even
showed that the results obtained from this RSM is quite close to
that of LES model. Moreover, it is known that the turbulence of
medium ow induces a turbulent force acting on particles. This
force may be signicant for very small particles (Kuang and Yu,
2011). Since only large particles are concerned, this turbulent
effect is not considered in the current work.
The ow patterns derived by solving Eqs. (1) and (2) represent
the mixture ow of medium and air. According to the work of
Wang et al. (2007, 2009a), the CFD modelling of medium and air
ow was divided into two steps, as shown in Fig. 2. In Step 1, only
air and slurry with certain density are considered. The turbulence
was modelled using the RSM, and the volume of fraction (VOF)
model used to describe the interface between the medium and
the air core. In VOF, the two phases are treated immiscible and
modelled by solving a single set of momentum equations
and tracking the volume fraction of each of the uids throughout
the domain. Both the slurry and air phases have homogeneous
viscosity and density, respectively. At this stage, the primary
position of the air core and the initial velocity distribution were
obtained. The method is similar to that used for modelling
multiphase ow in hydrocyclones (Wang et al., 2007; Wang and
Yu, 2010). In Step 2, six additional phases were introduced to
describe the behaviour of magnetite particles with different sizes.
The multiphase model was changed from the VOF to the Mixture
model. At this point, it should be noted that the TFM, VOF and
Mixture models are all continuum-based, thus numerically
belonging to the so-called EulerianEulerian approach; but they
have different features and functionalities in model application
(ANSYS Fluent 6.2). Detailed density and velocity distributions of
different phases were obtained at the end of this step. The details
of the medium ow calculation can be found elsewhere (Wang
et al., 2007, 2009a).
How to determine the viscosity of a slurry/suspension is an
area open for research. To date, there is little effort made on coal
slurry under dense medium cyclone (DMC) conditions. In this
work, the viscosity of a DMC medium is assumed to be controlled
by the solid fraction of magnetite, following the work of Ishii and
Mishima (1984), independent of ow or strain rate. To match the
measurements of Napier-munn and Scott (1990), which is specic
to DMC modelling, the rheological relation is modied by multiplying a modifying factor. Detailed treatments can be found in our
previous study (Wang et al., 2009a).
In the third step as shown in Fig. 2, the ow of coal particles
can be determined from the uid ow patterns obtained above
using either the LPT or the DEM method (Cundall and Strack,
1979). In this work, DEM was used. A particle in a uid can have
two types of motion: translational and rotational, both obeying
Newtons second law of motion. During its movement, the
particle may collide with its neighbouring particles or with the
wall and interact with the surrounding uid, through which
momentum is exchanged. At any time t, the equations governing
the translational and rotational motions of particle i in this
multiphase ow system are:
mi

ki
X
dvi
f pf ,i mi g
f c,ij f d,ij
dt
j1

dxi

dt

Table 1
Components of forces and torques acting on particle i.
Forces and torques

Symbols

Normal forces
Contact

f cn,ij

Damping

f dn,ij

ki
X

Equations
p 3=2
E
 31v
2Ri dn n
2

p1=2
Rdn
cn p3mi E 2
vn,ij
21v

Tangential forces
Contact

f ct,ij

Damping

f dt,ij

Torque
Friction
Rolling

Tc,ij
Tr,ij

Ri  f ct,ij f dt,ij
^i
mr f cn,ij x

Body force
Gravity

Gi

mi g

Particleuid interaction force

Viscous drag force
f d,i

and
Ii

The forces involved are: the particleuid interaction force, fpf,i,

gravitational force, mig, and interparticle forces between particles
i and j. The torques include the interparticle torque Tc,ij and rolling
friction torque Tr,ij. For multiple interactions, the interparticle
forces and torques are summed for ki particles interacting with
particle i. fp  f,i is the total particleuid interaction forces, which
is the sum of various particleuid forces including viscous drag
force and pressure gradient force (PGF) in the current case. Trial
simulations indicated that other particleuid forces, such as
virtual mass force and lift force, can be ignored. The uid
properties used to calculate the particleuid interaction forces
are those relating to the individual phases in the mixture,
i.e., water, air and magnetite particles of different sizes. For
simplicity, the effect of lubrication effect on particleparticle
interaction and particle dispersion due to turbulence are not
considered. The details of the calculation of the forces in Eqs.
(1)(4) are shown in Table 1. They have been used in many
previous studies, as summarised by Zhu et al. (2007).
CFD and DEM two-way coupling (the uid forces acting on
particles and the reaction of particles on the uid) is numerically
achieved as follows. At each time step, DEM provides information,
such as the positions and velocities of individual particles, for the
evaluation of porosity and volumetric particleuid interaction
forces in a computational cell. CFD then uses these data to
determine the uid ow eld, from which the particleuid
interaction forces acting on individual particles are determined.
Incorporation of the resulting forces into DEM produces information about the motion of individual particles for the next time
step. This coupling technique has been used in our previous
studies (Xu and Yu, 1997; Feng et al., 2004; Chu and Yu, 2008a;
Chu et al., 2009b). At this point, the present CFDDEM approach
could be compared with the previous ones.
The principles of CFDDEM have been well established, particularly after the recent work of Zhou et al. (2010). The implementation of CFDDEM models are usually made by developing
in-house codes. For complicated ow systems, the code development for the solution of uid phase could be very time-consuming. In the past, some attempts have been done to extend the
capability of CFDDEM model from simple to complicated systems. Particularly, taking the advantages of the available CFD

 
 
mf
minf9dt 9, dt,max g 3=2
 js dcn,ij
dt
1 1
dt,max
tj

p1=2
1dt =dt,max
ct 6mi ms f cn,ij
vt,ij
dt,max


2
rf 9ui vi 9ui vi pd2i b
4:8
0:63 Re
0:5
4 ei
2
p,i

Tc,ij Tr,ij

Pressure gradient force

f pg,i

V p,i rP

j1

where mi, Ii, vi and xi are, respectively, the mass, the moment
of inertia, the translational and rotational velocities of particle i.

where n

Ri
Ri ,

i
^i x
o
oi , Rep,i

vij vj vi oj  Rj oi  Ri , vn,ij vij  n  n, vt,ij vij  n  n,

Pkcell
h
i
Vi
1:5log Rep,i 2
, b 3:70:65 exp 
, e 1 DiV 1 :
m
2

di rf ei 9ui vi 9
f

cell

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

development, a DEMCFD model has been extended by Chu and

Yu (2008a) with Fluent as a platform, achieved by incorporating a
DEM code and a coupling scheme between DEM and CFD into
Fluent through its User Dened Functions (UDFs). The applicability of this development has been demonstrated in the study of
the particleuid ow in different ow systems including pneumatic conveying bend (Chu and Yu, 2008b), drug inhaler (Tong
et al., 2010), gas cyclone (Chu et al., 2011), circulating uidised
bed (Chu and Yu, 2008a) and dense medium cyclone (Chu et al.,
2009b). This approach is also used in this work.

3. Simulation conditions
The DMC considered in this work is, for convenience, similar to
that used in the previous experimental (Rong, 2007) and numerical (Chu et al., 2009b) studies. The geometric parameters and
mesh representation of the DMC are shown in Fig. 1(b) and (c).
The DMC has a square and involute inlet. It is divided into 80,318
hexahedral cells for the CFD computation. Three grid sizes were
examined in our trial simulations, respectively, giving 62,609,
80,318, 110,256 cells. The difference is less than 5% for all the
results considered, suggesting that the present computed results
are reliable, independent of mesh size. In line with practice, the
DMC considered is operated at an orientation angle of 101
(the orientation angle is dened as the angle between the DMC
axis and horizontal axis). Interestingly, numerical simulation also
shows that the best separation performance is usually achieved
when the orientation angle is around 101 (Wang et al., 2008). The
underlying mechanism needs further investigation. The pressure
at the two outlets (vortex nder and spigot) is set to one atmosphere (101.325 kPa). For simplicity, all coal particles are
assumed to be spherical. Moreover, only large particles (25 mm)
are considered, which is the average of the size range
(0.550 mm) in typical DMC operation. Therefore a parcel particle
model is not necessary in this work. This way, we can generate
reliable results that can be used to elucidate the fundamentals.
The operational parameters used in the simulation are summarised in Table 2.
Totally 10 numerical experiments have been carried out as
listed in Tables 3 and 4. In Runs 17, as shown in Table 3, particles

127

with one specic relative density (RD, dened as the ratio of coal
particle density to water density) are fed into the DMC. Particles
with different density distributions are fed in Runs 810 (see
Table 4 and Fig. 3). More coal particles of low density are present
in Run 8 and more coal particles of high density are present in
Run 10. They may, respectively, correspond to the coking and
thermal coals. The M:C ratio at the inlet is 19 for Runs 17,
equivalent to a solids mass ow rate of 300 kg/s/m2 and 7 for
Runs 810 which is close to typical plant operation condition
(about 47, equivalent to a solid ow rate of 1250714 kg/s/m2
given the mass ow rate of medium phase in the current case).
Note that each of Runs 17 are particles of one RD. The M:C ratio
set is high but it is more representative of the behaviour of one
type of particles in a DMC. To reduce the computational effort,
only large particles were considered in this work. The particle size
for all runs in this work is 25 mm.
The simulations are all unsteady, undertaken by the unsteady
solver in Fluent. The ow of waterair ow is rstly solved to reach
its macroscopically steady state that is dened as the state when
the ow properties just uctuate around their respective average
values, not varying with time. Then, the ow of a mixture of water,
air, magnetite particles is solved to reach its macroscopically steady
state. Finally, the ow of coal particles is affected. This is done by
injecting coal particles continuously from the inlet. The number of
particles injected in a given time is calculated so as to match the
pre-set M:C ratio. At the beginning of the injection of coal particles,
the medium ow may change signicantly due to the impact of
solids. After some time, the medium ow can reach another
macroscopically steady ow state (for example, see Fig. 4). In order
to get the partition performance of coal particles, the information
of coal particles exiting from the overow is collected during
the period of macroscopically steady ow state (about 20 s in
this work).

Table 3
Particle relative density (RD) in Runs 17.
Runs

Particle RD

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.7

1.8

2.0

2.0

Table 2
Operational parameters used in the simulations.
Phase
Solid

Gas

Parameter
Density
Particle diameter
Rolling friction coefcient
Sliding friction coefcient
Poissons ratio
Youngs modulus
Damping coefcient
Particle velocity at inlet
Density
Viscosity
Velocity at inlet

Symbol

r
di

mr
ms
n
E
c

r
m

r
m

Water

Density
Viscosity
Velocity at inlet

Magnetite

Density
Sizes (volume fractions in slurry)

Medium

Density
Viscosity
Velocity at inlet

r
m

Units
3

Value

kg/m
mm
mm

N/m2

m/s

12002200
25
0.005
0.3
0.3
1  107
0.3
3.8

kg/m3
kg/m/s
m/s

1.225
1.8  10  5
3.9

kg/m3
kg/m/s
m/s

998.2
0.001
3.9

kg/m3
mm

4945
10 (4.0%), 20 (3.4%), 30 (1.9%), 40 (1.5%),
50 (1.3%) and 80 (1.1%)

kg/m3
kg/m/s
m/s

1550
Ishii and Mishima (1984)
3.9

128

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Table 4
Mean particle relative density (RD) in Runs 810 (the density distributions are shown in Fig. 3).
Runs

10

Distribution
Average particle density (RD)

Coking distribution
1.617

Even distribution
1.699

Thermal distribution
1.785

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Model validation

Fig. 3. Particle density distributions used for Runs 810.

As described in Section 2, the proposed modelling involves a

few steps. This is because of the complexity of DMC ow and the
absence of experimental studies reported. On the other hand, this
step-wise approach offers a way to use the existing data in
verifying the proposed model.
The proposed model for Step 1 is actually the same as that
used in the modelling of the gasliquid ow in a hydrocyclone. To
validate this approach, the experimental data of Hsieh (1988)
were used. The measured results are in good agreement
with those measured, as reported elsewhere (Wang et al., 2007).
Step 2 adds the medium, i.e., magnetite particles, into consideration. To date, there are no data about the velocity proles of such
particle phases. What is available is the medium density distribution, measured by Subramanian (2002). The simulated proles are
very much similar to that measured, as reported by Wang et al.
(2009a). In step 3, DEM was added to the model to simulate the
ow of coal on the base of the developed CFD model. The
simulated partition performance of coal particles of different sizes
was compared favourably with the experiments (Chu et al.,
2009b). Therefore, it is considered that the proposed CFDDEM
model can be used to investigate the ow in a DMC, at least
qualitatively.
The results reported in this work are not directly validated
since there are no suitable experimental data available. However,
the results obtained can be partially validated by the experiments
conducted by Magwai and Bosman (2007) for a DMC and some
interesting phenomenon found for gas cyclones (Yuu et al., 1978;
Hoffmann et al., 1992; Fassani and Goldstein, 2000; Bricout and
Louge, 2004; Chu et al., 2011), as described in the following subsections.
4.2. Flow of particles with equal density

Fig. 4. Variation of the simulated pressure drops of medium phase with time for
three typical particle RD.

4.2.1. Medium ow
The ow of medium is important since it largely controls the
ow of coal particles (Chu et al., 2009a). The macroscopic
parameters commonly used to describe medium ow are operational head, medium split and medium differential. The operational head is dened as the pressure drop between the inlet and
outlet of the vortex nder of a DMC divided by medium feed
density, gravity acceleration and DMC body diameter. The medium split is the mass ow rate of medium at the outlet of the
vortex nder divided by that at the inlet of the DMC, i.e., the
proportion of the medium reported to the overow. The medium
differential is the difference in medium density between overow
and underow.
Fig. 4 shows the dynamic variation of the pressure drop with
time for different RD particles. It can be seen that that pressure
drop changes signicantly in the rst 10 s. Then the pressure drop
reaches a macroscopically steady ow state, uctuating around a
constant. Such uctuations are similar to those observed in
practice. It can also be seen that the impact of coal particles on
the pressure drop of medium phase is different when the RD of
coal particle is different. For light particles (RD1.2) and heavy

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

particles (RD 2.2), the pressure drop increases and decreases,

respectively, initially before reaching its macroscopically steady
state. For particles of middle density (RD 1.7), the addition of
coal particles has almost no effect on the pressure drop of the
medium phase.
When the coal-medium ow reaches macroscopically steady
ow state, time-averaged values of the operational head, split and
differential of the medium phase can be used to characterise the
P
ow. The time-averaged value is here obtained by 1=n ni 1 fi ,
where n is the total sample times during the sampling period and
f is the parameter considered. In this work, the sampling period
is from t 25 s to t 30 s and the sampling frequency is 0.1 s.
The effect of particle loading on the time-averaged values of
the operational head, split and differential of the medium ow is
shown in Fig. 5. The results suggest that if the conditions are
unchanged, the operational head, medium split and medium

Head

Without coal

6
5
4
1.2

1.4

1.6
1.8
2
Particle density (RD)

2.2

83

Without coal

Medium split (%)

82
81

80
79

78
77

Medium differential (RD)

76
1.2

0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
1.2

1.4

1.6
1.8
2
Particle density (RD)

2.2

Without coal

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.2

Particle density (RD)

Fig. 5. Simulation results of time-averaged operational head (a), medium split
(b) and medium differential (c) as a function of particle RD.

129

differential all decrease as particle density increases. It can be

seen that the head is 5.98 before coal particles are added into the
DMC, i.e., under conditions of pure medium ow. After adding
coal, the head is either higher or lower than 5.98 depending on
(coal) particle density. The head increases by 22% for particles of
1.2RD, and decreases by 5% for particles of 2.2RD. In general, the
addition of coal particles of high densities (41.9RD in this case)
reduces the head while that of low densities ( o1.9RD) increases
the head. In practice, the density of most of coal particles is
smaller than 1.9. Their loading into a DMC can normally lead to an
increased operational head. This suggests a higher head is needed
if there is a large portion of low RD particles in the feed. It also
explains why the head in some plants doubled after loading coal
while the ow rate of medium is maintained.
The inner ow structures of medium phase in the DMC are
shown in Figs. 6 and 7 in terms of pressure, density and velocities
of medium phase. Qualitatively, they all agree with the previous
ndings (Wang et al., 2009a). That is, the static pressure decreases
radially from wall to centre (Fig. 6(a)), the medium density at the
lower part is higher than that at the upper part (Fig. 6(b)), the
tangential velocity increases from the outer wall to the centre of
the DMC with its peak value in the region close to the air core
(Fig. 7(I)), the distribution of radial velocity is like a helical
twisted cylinder (Fig. 7(II)), and the medium ows downward
along the regions close to the body wall of the DMC but upward
along the regions in the centre of the DMC (Fig. 7(III)). However,
corresponding to the changes in the macroscopic behaviour
(Fig. 5), the inner ow structure of the medium phase also
changes when particle RD varies. Fig. 6(a) shows that the pressure
decreases with the increase of particle RD, which corresponds
to the decreased operational head as shown in Fig. 5(a).
Fig. 6(b) shows that the medium density decreases at the upper
part of the DMC when particle RD is 1.2 but decreases at the lower
part of the DMC when particle RD is 2.2, offering a reason why the
differential increases for light particles but decreases for heavy
particles as shown in Fig. 5(c). Fig. 7 shows that the tangential
velocity of the medium phase changes signicantly with particle
RD while the radial and axial velocities remain relatively
unchanged. Fig. 7(I) shows that the tangential velocity increases
for particles of RD 1.2 (Fig. 7(I)(a) vs. (b)) but decreases for
particles of RD 2.2 (Fig. 7(I)(a) vs. (d)).
The change of medium velocities can be further illustrated by
considering the total kinetic energy of motion of medium phase,
as shown in Fig. 8; here the kinetic energy is the sum of the
P number
kinetic energy ( cell
1=2mcell u2cell ) in each computational
cell 1
cell. mcell and ucell are the mass and velocity of the medium in a
CFD cell, respectively. Corresponding to velocity, the kinetic
energy can be calculated in the tangential, axial and radial
directions. As the tangential velocity represents the swirling
motion of the medium phase, the kinetic energy in the tangential
direction is also called as swirling energy in this work. It can be
seen that the tangential kinetic energy decreases signicantly
with the increase of particle RD while the radial and axial kinetic
energies are almost constant. Moreover, the tangential kinetic
energy is much larger than the axial and radial kinetic energy and
thus dominant. The change of kinetic energy is directly related to
the change of velocities, or vice verse.
The decrease of the tangential velocity of medium phase found
in this work is important, and it can largely explain the other
changes of the medium ow. A decrease in the tangential velocity
represents a decrease in the swirling energy. When the swirling
energy decreases, the operational head decreases correspondingly. At the same time, less medium ows toward the overow
which results in a decrease of medium split, as shown in Fig. 5(b).
There is less segregation of magnetite particles, which leads to the
decrease of medium differential, as shown in Fig. 5(c).

130

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Fig. 6. Simulated pressure (I) and density (II) distribution of medium phase at a central section of the DMC (the section is parallel to the inlet of the DMC) at t 30 s for
different fed particle RD: (a), without coal; (b), RD 1.2; (c), RD 1.7; and (d), RD 2.2.

Interestingly, the decrease of medium tangential velocity after

loading with heavy particles can be deducted from the phenomenon of spay/rope transition that is observed in experiments for
both hydrocyclone (Neesse et al., 2004) and DMC (Magwai and
Bosman, 2007). In the experiments by Magwai and Bosman
(2007), only heavy particles (silica particles with RD of 2.6 and
with a size range of 5 3 mm) were employed as ore in a
350 mm DMC. They observed that the ow at the spigot changed
from spray discharge to rope discharge when the mass ow
rate of particles was increased to a certain value. The spray
discharge actually indicates that particles are rotating along the
tangential direction when they exit the DMC through the spigot
while the rope discharge indicates that the particles at the
spigot are almost not rotating. This means that the rotating
velocity of particles at the spigot decreases as the mass ow rate
of solids increases while only heavy particles are fed into the
DMC. The rotation of particles must due to the rotation of
medium phase. Thus, the decrease of the rotating velocity
of particles at the spigot is considered to be due to the decrease
of the tangential velocity of medium ow at the spigot, as
revealed in the current simulation (see Fig. 7(I)).
Another fact that supports the decrease of the tangential velocity
in a cyclone when heavy solids are loaded is that it is widely found
in gas cyclones that both the tangential velocity and pressure drop
decrease signicantly in a gas cyclone after loading solids (Yuu et al.,
1978; Hoffmann et al., 1992; Fassani and Goldstein, 2000; Cortes

and Gil, 2007). In a gas cyclone, the density of solids is normally

much higher than the gas phase and thus the solids are quite heavy
when compared to the gas phase. It is supposed that similar
phenomenon may happen to hydro-cyclones. That is, when the
solids are much heavier than the carrying uid in a cyclone, both the
pressure drop and the tangential velocity of the uid phase may
decrease with the increase of solids loading rate. On the other hand,
when the solid phase is much lighter than the carrying uid, consists
of ne particles, or its loading rate is over the spigot capacity, they
would exit the cyclone through the vortex nder. In this case, the
pressure drop may increase after loading solids, as observed by
Bricout and Louge (2004). Further studies are probably necessary to
conrm this nding.

4.2.2. Particle ow
Particle ow is vital for a DMC since it decides the production
efciency. It is desired that all of the light coal valuables go to the
overow as product and the heavy mineral ores go to the underow
as reject. However, in practice, the separation is not so ideal, with
some coal particles misplaced to underow or heavy ores to overow due to particleparticle interaction, system instability and
other factors. Thus, the analysis of particle ow in a DMC is
important for both fundamental understanding and process control.
Fig. 9 shows the spatial distributions of particles in the DMC
for Runs 17. It shows that the particle ow patterns are sensitive

Kinetic energy of medium

kg.m2/s2

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

60000

Without coal

50000
40000
30000

Tangential kinetic energy

Radial kinetic energy
Axial kinetic energy
Total kinetic energy

20000
10000
0
1

Kinetic energy of medium

kg.m2/s2

131

1.2

1.4 1.6 1.8

2
2.2
Particle density (RD)

2.4

100000
10000

Without coal

1000
100
Tangential kinetic energy
Radial kinetic energy
Axial kinetic energy
Total kinetic energy

10

1
1

1.2

1.4 1.6 1.8

2
Particle density (RD)

2.2

2.4

Fig. 8. Kinetic energy of the medium phase at a macroscopically steady state

(at t 30.0 s) as a function of particle relative density: (a), normal scale; (b),
log scale.

particle RD is 1.8 and nally decreases to a moderate level when

particle RD is high (from RD 2.0 to 2.2). This may correspond to
the phenomenon that in general, light particles have a shortest
residence time, heavy particles have moderate residence time and
particles with density close to D50 have a longer residence time.
This phenomenon was also observed when a one-way CFDDEM
model was used (Chu et al., 2009a).

Fig. 7. Simulated spatial distributions of tangential (I), radial (II) and axial (III)
velocities of medium phase at a central section of the DMC (the section is parallel
to the inlet of the DMC) at t 30 s for different fed particle RD: (a), pure medium
ow (without coal); (b), RD 1.2; (c), RD 1.7; and (d), RD2.2.

to particle RD. Light particles (RD o1.6) only pass through the
upper part of the DMC. They do not go to the lower part of the
DMC or the spigot at all. When particle RD is 1.7 or 1.8, which is
close to D50, dened as the particle density at which 50% of
particles report to overow, there are a lot of particles residing in
the DMC. This is consistent with the phenomenon that neargravity particles, which have densities close to D50, have a longer
residence time in a cyclone (Wood, 1990; Chu et al., 2009a). Fig. 9
also shows that high density particles (RD42.0) mainly move
downwards to the underow along the cyclone wall and their
concentration is relatively high in the spigot region.
Fig. 10 shows that the total mass of solids residing in the DMC
varies with particle RD despite the fact that their mass ow rates
at the inlet are all the same. It can be seen that the total mass
residing in the DMC is at its lowest lever when particle RD is low
(from 1.2 to 1.7), then increases to a maximum value when

4.2.3. Forces governing particle motion

According to the mathematical framework of the current work,
the motion of particles in a DMC is governed by three forces:
particleuid, particleparticle and particlewall interaction
forces. In this sub-section, the effects of these three forces on
particles of different RD are examined in more detail to better
understand the nature of ow in DMCs.
4.2.3.1. Particleuid interaction force. Two particleuid forces,
i.e., viscous uid drag force and pressure gradient force (PGF) are
considered in this work. The spatial distributions of the two forces
at different particle RD are shown in Fig. 11. Note that the forces
shown in Fig. 12(a) and (b) are all normalised by dividing by
particle weight, thus the magnitude of the normalised force is
related to particle acceleration. The uid drag force is the only
particleuid force that is related to the medium velocity. One
may expect it would follow the velocity of the medium ow.
However, Fig. 11(a) shows that the uid drag force does not
follow any obvious trend. This is because the direction of the force
is determined by the relative velocity between uid and particle
(see Table 1), not only by the uid velocity, as discussed by
Chu et al. (2009a). It can also be observed from the gure that the
drag force largely decreases as particle RD increases. This is
considered to be mainly caused by the decrease of the momentum
of medium phase with the increase of particle size, as shown in Fig. 8.

132

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Fig. 9. Snapshots (at t 30.0 s) of particle ow pattern at a vertical central slice of the DMC for different particle densities, particles are coloured by densities. (For
interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

On the other hand, Fig. 11(b) shows that the PGF does show an
obvious trend and points to the centre of the DMC. This agrees
with the radial pressure distribution where the pressure
decreases gradually from the wall to the centre of the DMC
(Fig. 6). It can be seen that the PGF is at its highest value in the
region just outside the air-core, which suggests that the pressure
gradient here is the highest. It can also be seen that the PGF
largely decreases with the increase of the fed particle density.
This may be due to the decrease of the operational head with the
increase of particle RD, as shown in Fig. 5(a). The overall trends of
the spatial distribution of the two forces agree with those
reported in the previous work (Wang et al., 2009a).

PN
Fig. 12(a) and (b) shows the averaged (1=N p i p 1 9f pf ,i 9) and
PNp
total ( i 1 9f pf ,i 9) particleuid forces at different particle RD,
where Np is the total number of particles residing in the DMC.
For comparison, the particleparticle and particlewall forces are
also shown in the gure. It can be seen from Fig. 12(a) that the
averaged PGF force is generally much larger than the averaged
uid drag force, particleparticle and particlewall interaction
forces. Furthermore, both the averaged drag and PGF forces have
two peaks in the range of particle RD from 1.2 to 2.2. One peak
occurs at RD 1.2 and another at RD 1.8. The peak value at
RD1.2 may occur mainly because the particles are light so the
acceleration will be large if the same uid forces are acting on

400

250
200
150
100
50

Normalized average
particle-fluid force

300

Average drag force

Average PGF
Average particle-particle force
Average particle-wall force

25
20

15
10
5
0
1.2

0
1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2 2.1 2.2
Particle density (RD)

Fig. 10. Total mass of solids residing in the DMC for different particle RD at
t 30.0 s.

133

30

350

Normalized total particlefluid force

Mass of solids residing in the

DMC (kg)

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

5.E+05
5.E+05
4.E+05
4.E+05
3.E+05
3.E+05
2.E+05
2.E+05
1.E+05
5.E+04
0.E+00
1.2

1.4
1.6
1.8
2
Particle density (RD)

2.2

Total drag force

Total PGF
Total particle-particle force
Total particle-wall force

1.4
1.6
1.8
2
Particle density (RD)

2.2

Volumetric particlefluid force (N/m3)

1.E+10
1.E+09
1.E+08
1.E+07
1.E+06

Tangential particle-fluid force

Radial particle-fluid force
Axial particle-fluid force

1.E+05
1.E+04
1

1.2

1.4 1.6 1.8

2
Particle density (RD)

2.2

2.4

Fig. 12. Simulated results of the averaged (a) and total (b) particleuid forces on
particle scale, and volumetric reaction force acting on uid by particles (c) in the
DMC as a function of particle RD.

Fig. 11. Snapshots of a central slice (of thickness 7% Dc) of the DMC (the slice is
normal to the inlet of the DMC) at t 30 s showing the distributions of viscous
drag force (a) and pressure gradient force (b) on individual particles for different
fed particle RD. The forces are normalised by dividing the particle weight.

them. The peak value of the uid drag force at RD 1.8 may be
mainly because the total mass of solids residing in the DMC is at
the highest value, which makes the medium porosity low and
thus yields higher drag forces. The peak value of PGF at RD 1.8
may correspond to the fact that there is a concentration of
particles in the region just outside the air core where the pressure

gradient is high. Fig. 12(b) shows that the total particleuid

forces, as the sum of the two forces, have only one peak value at
RD 1.8.
The total particleuid interaction force shown in Fig. 12(b)
represents the acceleration of particles due to the particleuid
force. It is analysed for individual particles. It can also be
done at a CFD cell scale as the sum of volumetric forces
P number
( Cell
9Fpf ,cell 9) representing the impact of particleuid
cell 1
forces on medium ow. Here, consistent with the analysis of
medium velocity, the total particleuid force has three components in the tangential, axial and radial directions. It can be seen
from Fig. 12(c) that the particleuid force in the radial direction
is much larger than those in the axial and tangential directions.
This is because the PGF is large and predominantly in the radial
direction. Fig. 12(c) also shows that the three forces, respectively,
reach their peak values at RD 1.8. This is again caused by the
high solid concentration in the DMC at RD 1.8.
It would be of interest to know the spatial distribution of the
particleuid forces. Fig. 13 shows the results, which indicate that

134

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Fig. 13. The spatial distribution of the particleuid interaction forces in the DMC (central section normal to the inlet) at t 30 s for particles of RD 1.2 (I) and RD 2.2 (II):
(a) tangential direction; (b) axial direction; and (c) radial direction.

the particleuid forces are sensitive to particle RD. The distribution

qualitatively agrees with the spatial distribution of solids (Fig. 9).
The change of the spatial distribution of particleuid forces with
RD provides an explanation why particles of different RD have
different effects on medium ow. For particles of RD 1.2, the
particleuid interaction mainly occurs in the region outside and
just below the vortex (Fig. 13(I)). The region outside the vortex
nder acts as a bottleneck for medium ow since medium must
pass through it. When particles pass through the same space with
uid, the uid velocity will increase since uid shares the ow space
with particles. This may explain why the tangential velocity of the
medium phase increases with the loading of light coal particles.
On the other hand, for particles of RD2.2, the particleuid
interaction predominantly occurs in the region close to the spigot
(see Fig. 13(II)). The spigot region is open for medium ow since the
medium can either ow toward underow or overow, and can also
ow toward the centre of the DMC. When forces act on uids in
such an open region, uid tends to be decelerated and ow through
the area where the resistant force is relatively small. This may
explain why the tangential velocity of medium phase decreases after
loading heavy particles, as shown in Figs. 7 and 8.

4.2.3.2. Particleparticle interaction force. Particleparticle interaction

affects the partition performance, particularly when the M:C ratio is
low. In this work, the particleparticle interaction is quantied
by use of the so-called Time Averaged Collision Intensity (TACI),
dened by
Pt T 0 T s Pkm
t T0
i 1 9f cn,i f dn,i f ct,i f dt,i 9
TACI
5
Vs  Ts
where Vs is the volume of a sample cell, Ts and T0 are the sampling
period and sampling starting time, respectively, km is the number of
particles contacting with each other at a given time. In the
calculation, this is done by dividing the DMC, i.e. the computational
domain, into many small elements and TACI is calculated for each
element. Physically, it can be understood as the particleparticle
interaction forces per unit volume per unit time.
Fig. 14(a) shows that the spatial distribution of particle
particle TACI is similar to that of the solid phase (Fig. 9). It can
be seen from this gure that the intensity of particleparticle
interaction is high for particles of RD 1.2 and low for particles of
RD1.7. This is further demonstrated in Fig. 14(b) where the total
particleparticle TACI at RD 1.2 is shown to be much higher than

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

135

Fig. 14. Spatial distributions of the time-averaged particleparticle interaction force at a central section of the DMC (normal to the inlet of the DMC) (a) and the variation
of total particleparticle interaction force with time (b) for different particle RD.

Fig. 15. Spatial distributions of the time-averaged particlewall interaction force at a central slice (10% of the DMC diameter) of the wall of the DMC (a) and the variation
of total particlewall interaction force with time (b) for different particle RD.

those at RD 2.2 and 1.7. The reason why the particleparticle

TACI at RD 1.2 is high is because light coal particles, which are in
the outside region of the vortex nder and driven by the PGF, ow
toward the centre of the DMC and hit the vortex nder wall, then
bounce back and collide with incoming particles. The particle
particle TACI at RD 2.2 is at a moderate level at the spigot
mainly because the solid concentration is high there. With a high
solid concentration, the chance for particleparticle collision to
generate a large particleparticle interaction force is high, particularly when particles do not follow the same trajectory.
4.2.3.3. Particlewall interaction force. The particlewall interaction
force relates to the wear of DMC walls which may affect the
separation performance of a DMC. For convenience, it is quantied
in a way similar to the concept of TACI dened in Eq. (5). However,
the cell volume in the equation is replaced by (wall) area to give the
interaction between particles per unit area per unit time.
Fig. 15(a) shows the distribution of particlewall TACI for
particles of different RD. The high TACI region locates outside the
wall of the vortex nder at RD 1.2 and the spigot at RD2.2. The
high TACI outside the wall of the vortex nder arises from that
driven by the PGF, light particles move toward the centre of the
DMC and some of them hit the vortex nder wall from the

outside. The spigot wall has a high TACI at RD 2.2 because it

provides a resistant force to the centrifugal force for the high
tangential motion of particles. Quantitatively, Fig. 15(b) shows
that the total particlewall TACI is the highest at RD 1.2 and
lowest at RD 1.7. This suggests that the vortex nder wall could
be severely worn by light particles, the spigot wall could be
moderately worn by heavy particles, and the particles with
density close to D50 may not wear the DMC walls much. While
the particlewall TACI is related to wearing of DMC walls, further
studies are needed to develop a model to predict the wear prole
as a function of operational time.
4.3. Flow of particles with a density distribution
It is clear for the results in Section 4.2 that particles of different
densities have different behaviour in a DMC. In practice, particles
used are polydisperse with different properties. As a natural
extension, in this section, we will consider the effect of particle
density distribution that is shown in Fig. 3. It is found that the
effect of particle density distributions on particle and medium
ow is similar to that obtained in Section 4.2 and a previous work
(Chu et al., 2009b). Therefore, only some typical results will be
presented here.

136

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Fig. 16(a) shows the spatial distributions of particles in the DMC

for Runs 810. It shows that the particle ow patterns are largely
similar to those reported in the previous studies (Chu et al., 2009a,
2009b). Light particles pass through the upper part of the DMC, heavy
particle go to the lower part, and particles of middle density remains
mainly in the centre of the connect region of the cylinder and cone
parts. The particle ow pattern is also different when particle average
density is different. Fig. 16(a) shows that there are more low density
particles near the region under and outside the vortex nder when

particle average density is smaller and there are more heavy particles
residing in the spigot region when particle average density is higher.
Fig. 16(b) clear shows that the time-averaged solid concentration in
the spigot region increases with average particle density. At the
vortex nder, as particles are dragged rapidly upward by fast medium
ow, the time-averaged particle concentration there is quite low.
Fig. 16(b) also shows that the time-averaged particle concentration is
not completely symmetric especially in the cylinder region of the
DMC, which could be due to the asymmetric layout of the inlet.

Fig. 16. Snapshots (at t 30 s) of particle ow pattern at a vertical central slice (a) and the spatial concentration of time-averaged solid concentration at a vertical central
section (b) of the DMC for different particle density distributions in Runs 810, particles are coloured by densities. (For interpretation of the references to color in this
gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Fig. 17 shows that the simulated head, split and differential all
decrease with the increase of average particle density, which is in
good agreement with those in our previous study (Chu et al.,
2009b) where the concept of parcel-particle is adopted. This
suggests that the parcel-particle concept is reasonably valid for
DMC studies, although the properties of parcel-particles have to
be determined empirically. This is because the ow of particles of
different types is largely stratied in a DMC, hence particles just
have limited interactions once they are separated. Nonetheless,

Head

Without coal

4
1.5

1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
Averaged particle density (RD)

Medium split (%)

81
79

Without coal

77
75
73
1.5

1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
Averaged particle density (RD)

Medium differencial (RD)

0.4
Without coal
0.3

0.2

0.1
1.5

the concept must be made carefully and in principle, cannot be

used generally. Comparing Figs. 17 and 5, it can be seen that the
trends are similar to each other. This suggests that the increase of
average particle density or particle density can both lead to the
decrease of the operational head, medium split and differential.

5. Conclusions
A CFDDEM two-way coupling model has been used to study
the effect of particle density on the medium-coal ow in a DMC.
It is found that both the particle and medium ows vary
signicantly with particle density. The underlying mechanisms
have been analysed in terms of ow eld and forces. The
following conclusions can be drawn:

137

1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
Averaged particle density (RD)

Fig. 17. Comparison of simulated and correlated medium head (a), split (b) and
differential (c) as a function of average particle density as calculated from different
particle density distributions in Table 4.

(1) For the ow of medium, the operational head, medium split

and differential all decrease with the increase in particle
density, which are mainly caused by the decrease in the
tangential velocity of medium phase after loading of coal
particles. The tangential velocity and its corresponding swirling energy play a dominant role in affecting the DMC
performance.
(2) For the ow of particles, particles of different densities have
different trajectories in a DMC, producing different effects on
medium ow and hence particleuid and other interaction
forces. Light particles mainly pass through the upper part of
the DMC while heavy particles mainly pass through the
regions close to the body wall of the DMC. When particle
density is close to the cut density D50, the total mass of solids
residing in the DMC reaches its peak value. Particles of
different properties (density in the current case) have different trajectories in a DMC, leading to different particleparticle
and particleuid interaction forces and different ow
behaviour.
(3) For the forces governing the ow of particles, the spatial
distribution of the particleuid and particleparticle interaction forces depends heavily on particle density/trajectory.
Strong particleuid interaction forces occur at the top of the
DMC when particle RD is low but at the spigot region when
particle RD is high. Both particleparticle and particlewall
interactions are high when particles are light, moderate when
particles are heavy, and low when particle density is close
to D50.
(4) It is shown that the increase of average particle density or
particle density can both lead to the decrease of the operational head, medium split and differential. Hence the effect of
particle density distribution is approximated by use of its
average particle density. However, this effect should be
systematically studied in order to better represent engineering practice.
(5) The present results explain well why coal type matters in
DMC operation. In this connection, the most notable nding is
probably that heavy particles lower the tangential velocity of
medium phase resulting in the decrease of pressure drop
(as observed in experiments (Magwai and Bosman, 2007)) while
light particles increase the tangential velocity and pressure drop
(need to be conrmed by experiments). However, coals are
characterised by not only particle densities but also particle sizes,
and other material properties such as hardness and friction. These
variables may interact with each other, and their effects will also
depend on operational conditions. A systematic study is necessary in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of
these effects and optimise the design and control of DMCs. The
CFDDEM model proposed in this work can be used to support
such studies.

138

K.W. Chu et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 73 (2012) 123139

Nomenclature
c
d
E
fc
fd
fp  f
Fp  f
g
G
I
kcell
ki
km
m
n
n
Np
P
DP
R
R
Re
t
T0
Ts
T
u
u0
V
v
Vs
Vcell

damping coefcient, dimensionless

particle diameter, m
Youngs modulus, Pa
contact force, N
damping force, N
particleuid interaction force, N
interaction forces between uid and solids phases in a
computational cell, N
gravity acceleration vector, 9.81 m/s2
gravity vector, N
moment of inertia of a particle, kg m
number of particles in a computational cell, dimensionless
number of particles in contact with particle i, dimensionless
number of collisions in a sampling time interval, dimensionless
mass, kg
sample times, dimensionless
unit vector in the normal direction of two contact spheres,
dimensionless
the total number of particles residing in the DMC
pressure, Pa
pressure drop, Pa
radius vector (from particle centre to a contact point), m
magnitude of R, m
Reynolds number, dimensionless
time, s
sampling starting time, s
total sampling time, s
driving friction torque, N m
mean uid velocity vector, m/s
uctuating uid velocity vector, m/s
volume, m3
particle velocity vector, m/s
sample volume, m3
volume of a computational cell, m3

Greek letters

b
d
d

e
f

m
mr
ms
n
r
t
x
o
^
x

empirical coefcient dened in Table 2, dimensionless

vector of the particleparticle or particlewall overlap, m
magnitude of d, m
porosity, dimensionless
parameter
uid viscosity, kg/m/s
coefcient of rolling friction, m
coefcient of sliding friction, dimensionless
Poissons ratio, dimensionless
density, kg/m3
viscous stress tensor, N/m3
angular velocity, rad/s
magnitude of angular velocity, rad/s
unit angular velocity

Subscripts
c
cell
d
D
f
ij
i(j)
max
n

contact
computational CFD cell
damping
drag
uid phase
between particle i and j
corresponding to i(j)th particle
maximum
in normal direction

p
pg
pf
s
t

particle phase
pressure gradient
between particle and uid
sample
in tangential direction

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Australian Coal Association
Research Program (ACARP) and Australia Research Council (ARC)
for the nancial support of this work, and to the industrial
monitors for helpful discussion and suggestions.
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