Regression Model for Pressure Drop of 50 mm Solid-Liquid Hydrocyclone

Abstract

Pressure drop is an important parameter for designing and operating a hydrocyclone. High pressure drop leads to excessive consumption of energy, while too low pressure drop may affect the hydrocyclone efficiency. The objectives of this research were to investigate the parameters that affected the pressure drop of a 50-mm hydrocyclone, namely, underflow diameter, overflow diameter, inlet diameter, feed flow rate and feed concentration; a model that can be used to predict the pressure drop was also proposed. All possible regression methods were used for selecting the best set of parameters that affected the pressure drop. The results showed that the underflow diameter, overflow diameter, inlet diameter and feed flow rate were the set of parameters that mostly affected the pressure drop of the hydrocyclone. The regression model could predict the pressure drop of the hydrocyclone well when compared with the experimental results with the coefficient of determination, R2 and mean square error, MSE of 0.9802 and 0.0009, respectively.