Computational Fluid Dynamics Model of a Cyclone Separator
Abstract
Air cyclones are a promising technology for first stage air filtration in future lunar habitats where lunar dust mitigation is a mission critical concern. Our experimental work with cyclones in microgravity as part of NASA’s Systems Engineering Educational Discovery (SEED) program suggested that gravity does not play a significant role in the operation of the air cyclone. If correct, this result paves the way for further study of cyclone filtration in microgravity.
Building on the SEED research, in this project we develop a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the cyclone used in the experimental work in reduced gravity to address the following questions:
How does collection efficiency scale with gravity?
What are the dynamical forces acting on particles in an air cyclone?
Can we understand our results in terms of these dynamical forces?
Description
Research Poster
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Measurements of the Collection Efficiency of an Air Cyclone in Lunar Gravity
Crosby, Kevin; Agui, Juan; Pennington, Caitlin; Sorensen, Emily; Martin, Erin; Fritz, Isa; Frye, Bradley (Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, 2009-03-15)We report experimental results on the collection efficiency of an air cyclone operating with a lunar dust simulant under lunar gravity. Microgravity collection efficiency is, to within experimental uncertainty, not different ... -
Computational Fluid Dynamics Study of an Air Cyclone in Reduced Pressure and Gravity
Frye, Bradley (2010-06-11)We investigate the performance of a small air cyclone under varying gravity and pressure con- ditions, using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program. We simulate dust loading in the cyclone and calculate filtration ... -
Computational Fluid Dynamical Model of a Cyclone Separator in Microgravity
Crosby, Kevin; Frye, Bradley (Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, 2009-03-15)ollection efficiencies and operational characteristics of a small air cyclone with a low-density lunar dust load are calculated under different gravitational conditions using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. In ...