Impact energy analysis of turbulent water sprays for continuous centrifugal concentration

A SLon full-scale continuous centrifugal concentrator was used to reconcentrate hematite from a high gradient magnetic separation concentrate to study the effect of impact angle, concentrate mass and drum rotation speed on the impact energy of turbulent water sprays for continuous centrifugal concentration, under conditions of feed volume flow rate around 9 m³/h, feed solid concentration of 25%-35% and reciprocating velocity of water sprays at 0.05 m/s. The results indicate that a minimal critical impact energy is required in the water sprays for achieving continuous concentration of the concentrator; an unfitted impact angle reduces the impact efficiency, and the highest impact efficiency of 0.6416 is found at the impact angle of 60°; the increase in concentrate mass leads to an increase in impact energy, and the highest impact efficiency is maintained when the concentrate mass varies in the range of 0.44-0.59 kg/s; when the concentrate mass and the pressure of water sprays are kept at around 0.45 kg/s and in the range of 0.4-0.6 MPa respectively, the impact energy increases proportionally with the increase of drum rotation speed.