Design of the new guide vane for the turbo air classifier

Abstract The guide vane is a common guide part in a turbo air classifier. However, there is a lack of a theoretical design basis and an analogy method is often used to design the guide vanes. The guide vanes’ effects of improving the flow field distribution are obtained by means of comparison of the flow field of the classifiers with and without guide vanes. However, the guide vane of a 15° setting angle should be optimized due to the non‐uniform airflow circumferential distribution in the annular region. To obtain a well‐distributed flow field of a turbo air classifier, a design method for the guide vane is provided based on the airflow trajectory in the volute and a new guide vane of a 10° setting angle is designed under the operating condition of 12–1200. The numerical simulation results show that the standard deviation of circumferential radial and tangential velocity is decreased. Besides, the trajectories of the particles with the same size in different circumferential positions show their classification results are consistent. This guide vane design method is feasible and provides the design references for the turbo air classifiers.