These days, many seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits have been discovered in Japan's exclusive economic zones. They have many kinds of useful metals, and are expected to be future metal resources. However, SMS mining faces an economic problem for the reason that disposal of unnecessary parts of SMS ores is very expensive in Japan. Adding a function of primary ore separation on seafloor is necessary for economical SMS mining. Some small scale model experiments were conducted by the authors. In this study, CFD analysis is applied for the results of the model hydrocyclone. From the analysis, the fundamental flow condition good for the ore separation in the cyclone is recognized.
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