Abstract
To study the shape separation mechanism of solid particles of differing shapes on a rotating conical disk with a spiral scraper, the behaviors of particles travelling along the scraper wall were discussed by using some cylindroid particles differing in cross-sectional shape. In this paper, for the simulation of the particle's motion along the scraper, three types of the motion were proposed and combined each other.
Simulations were carried out under various operating conditions, anti the values of θs(: the vectorial angle at which a particle leaves the scraper wall) were calculated for each particle.
The following results were obtained.
(1) θs decreases with increase in the shape index k over a comparatively wide range of k, where k is the ratio of the semi-minor axis b to semi-major axis a of an ellipse at cross section of a cylindroid. The correlation between θs and k is considerably affected by the rotating speed of the disk n and inclination angle of the disk surface β.
(2) The particles of differing shapes could be effectively sorted along the scraper on the disk.
(3) θs values estimated by the simulation agree approximately with the ones observed for various cylindroid particles.
