Diseño y simulación de un separador ciclónico con capacidad de hasta 0.5 m^/s de aire para la eliminación de impurezas en el cacao en la Fundación Familia Salesiana Salinas "El Salinerito" de Guaranda

Abstract

This work aimed to design and simulate a cyclone separator with a capacity of up to 0.5 m3/s to reduce downtime and control the process of removing residues from cocoa nibs. The design was based on the following parameters: the previously mentioned flow rate, an inlet velocity of 15 m/s, an average residue size of 0.03 m, and an ambient temperature of 18 ℃, which was obtained from the "El Salinerito" area. Likewise, a selection of alternatives was established with respect to the material, equipment that acts as a vacuum pump, type of cyclone separator, and geometry of the pipe to proceed with the calculations of load losses, equipment dimensions, and selection of the fan, among others. It is highlighted that a Zenz cyclone was selected as it has the most adequate geometry for the proposed design capacity. Lastly, the Fluent module of ANSYS is used to conduct a numerical simulation, yielding velocity and pressure values on the contours that fall within a margin of error below 10 %. This serves as evidence to validate the analytically calculated data.