Numerical Analysis of Fluid Flow and Filtering Efficiency in Centrifugal Oil Filter

In centrifugal oil filters particles are forced to move toward the filter casing wall by centrifugal force in the rotating oil flow and the particles are trapped and removed on the filter paper installed at the wall. In the present study, flow field of oil and particle motion in a centrifugal oil filter has been numerically calculated in order to estimate the filtering efficiency for various operating conditions. Fluent code was used for the numerical calculations. Uncoupling the oil flow and the particle motion and the use of particle tracking trajectory enabled the estimation of filtering efficiency for various particle sizes, particle density and the filter rotational speed. Higher filtering efficiency was observed for heavier and larger particles as well as higher filter rotational speed. For the typical case of the particle density of $6000kg/m^3$ and the particle size of $10{\mu}m$ at 3500 RPM, the calculated filtering efficiency per passage was 0.31.

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