Numerical Investigation of the Grid, Turbulence Model and Discretization Sensitivity of an Automotive Cyclone Particle Separator

The accuracy of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of complex flows in general, and highly swirling flows in particular, depends on a number of parameters. In this paper we report on the sensitivity of CFD simulations of transient flow in an automotive reverse flow type cyclone particle separator to mesh size/type, turbulence models, and temporal discretization schemes. More specifically, this study is concerned with the effect of these modeling choices on the two main performance measures of the cyclone: overall pressure drop and particle separation efficiency.