Solids Separation Due to Differential Inertia

A scheme for separating solids from a suspending liquid is investigated. The separation technique utilizes inertial differences for solids and liquids to effect separation in accelerating flow. Flow is withdrawn from the center of a pipe transporting a slurry. Because of the relatively higher inertia of the solids a significant percentage of the solids originally in the flow that is withdrawn escape and the flow withdrawn has a lower solids concentration. This scheme is investigated both experimentally and analytically and is shown to be effective. The results suggest that the scheme studied and other similar methods offer a viable separation technique that will result in significant benefits for certain applications.