Research of Bubble Breakup and Influencing Factors in Flotation Machine

Abstract

As the core factor of flotation, bubbles have an important effect on flotation. The rotor speed, initial gas parameters and impeller structure of the flotation machine will affect the formation and movement of bubbles. It is very important to study the influence mechanism of operating parameters of flotation machine on the bubble breakup process for flotation machine design and structure optimization. This paper takes KYF-0.2m<sup>3</sup> flotation machine as the research object, establishes a single bubble analysis model, adopts the VOF (Volume of Fluid) method to analyze the influence of different initial positions of bubbles on the bubble breakup behavior, and studies the influence of impeller speed and initial position of bubbles on the bubble breakup. Result show that the breakup of bubbles mainly occurs near the stator region. With the increase of rotational speed of the impeller, the centrifugal force and the disturbance of the convection field will become greater, the time of the bubble breakup become shorter, more bubbles breakup and generate more smaller ones. With the bubble position is closer to the rotating axis of the impeller, the impact of reflow becomes stronger and the bubble breakup effect will be better, and if the bubble initial position closer to the impeller cover, the influence of impeller on the bubbles become greater and the distribution of bubbles will be more uniform.