Numerical Simulation and Analysis of Gas-Solid-Liquid Three-Phase Flow in Mechanical Flotation cell

Abstract In order to analyze the effect of rotation speed of impeller and charge pressure on the inner flow and floatation dynamics characters of mechanical and pneumatic floatation, the kind of floatation is investigated. The gas-solid-liquid three-phase three-dimension turbulent flow fields are analyzed numerically with the Mixture multi-phase model,K-ɛ turbulent model and Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Storkes equations. The void fraction test result of physical prototype is given with different rotation speed. The simulation results show that the rotation speed of impeller has the important influence on the circle type of fluid in the floatation, void fraction, mineralization rate, flotation dynamics characters and efficiency with the same pressure of gas inlet. The test results show the gas-solid-liquid three-phase flow fields with the design rotation speed is well with the floatation dynamics environment in the floatation, which also shows the importance of rotation speed of the impeller for the performance of the mechanical and pneumatic flotation.