Metalurgia

Cavex® Hydrocyclones

Excellent Minerals Solutions

First choice for Hydrocyclones

Increase your efficiency, extend wear life and reduce your costs with Weir Minerals’ Cavex® hydrocyclones

Delivering you benefits beyond innovation The unique laminar spiral inlet geometry of Weir Minerals’ Cavex® hydrocyclones has been fundamental in helping drive customer productivity upwards whilealso bringing down the total cost of ownership. Yet what takes Cavex® hydrocyclone innovation even further is Weir Minerals’ consistent focus on finding solutions that maximize efficiency and minimize costs, supported by our wealth of experience and knowledge, locally and around the globe, in mining and minerals processing. The creation of the Cavex® hydrocyclone came out of the focus on findingbetter solutions - a design that delivers maximum efficiency, maximum capacity and longer wear life than conventional involute or tangential feed cyclones.

Each cluster of Cavex® hydrocyclones is modelled using the latest 3D CAD technology

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Greater hydraulic capacity, increased circuit capacity, longer wear life, improved leach kinetics

Increasing hydraulic capacity The Cavex®hydrocyclone was never a cone modification, but rather an entirely new feed geometry that substantially increases hydraulic capacity while minimizing localized wear on the feed chamber and vortex finder. The result – lower operating costs and fewer cyclones. Increasing circuit capacity For grinding circuit applications, Cavex hydrocyclones increase circuit capacity by minimizing the quantity of finesbypassing to the underflow stream. This is achieved by maximizing the air core diameter created within the rotating mass of fluid in the hydrocyclone. Not only has this been proven in the laboratory, but time and again in full scale operations.
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Cavex® hydrocyclones in mining
Achieving increased wear life At a gold mine in Western Australia, a Cavex® hydrocyclone was tested in a cluster of 14conventional style cyclones. The 25mm thick conventional style feed chamber liners lasted an average 1200 hours. The Cavex® rubber feed chamber liners, also 25mm thick, lasted an average 3750 hours – a 300% increase in wear life. Improved leach kinetics In addition to the increased wear life of cyclones, the mine was able to achieve a major reduction of the >300 micron particles from the overflow.With the use of all Cavex® hydrocyclones and some plant modifications, the mine increased gold recovery.

Head-to-head trial results comparison

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Cavex® hydrocyclone Cavex hydrocyclone Existing hydrocyclones Existing hydrocyclones Improved Recovery

Trial Results Results

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Above graph shows Cavex® hydrocyclone efficiency in headto-head trials at gold mine in Western Australia with a feed slurry of 65% w/w. Trial showed a major reduction of the >300 micron particles from the overflow and wear life of the Cavex® hydrocyclone liner was three times longer than conventional hydrocyclone liners.

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Design that creates more evenwear, longer wear life and more efficient classification

Benefits of greatly reduced turbulence throughout the whole hydrocyclone The laminar spiral inlet geometry design provides a natural flow path into the Cavex® hydrocyclone. Its unique shape has no sharp edges or square corners and allows the feed stream to blend smoothly with rotating slurry inside the chamber. The result is greatly reducedturbulence throughout the entire hydrocyclone, creating more even wear, longer life and more efficient classification. In conventional hydrocyclones, slurry bursts into the cylinder with no flow control and the resulting turbulence is responsible for gouging liner walls.

Improved flow means more with less By minimizing flow resistance through the feed chamber, Cavex® hydrocyclones process...