Effect of Permanent Magnet Arrangement on the Efficiency of a Horizontal Drum Eddy Current Magnetic Separator

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of permanent magnet arrangements on the efficiency of an eddy current magnetic separator. Such a separator consists mainly of a drum equipped with identical NdFeB permanent magnet bars, with a residual magnetic flux density (Br) of 1.1 T, and a conveyor belt that transports the material to be purified. Through numerical simulations of various magnet configurations, we studied how these arrangements influence the magnetic field distribution, the Lorentz force acting on the particles and the resulting trajectories of conducting particles, which collectively reflect the separation efficiency. To accomplish this, the magnetic field and the conductive piece dynamic governing equations were numerically solved by coupling the finite element (FE) and Runge Kutta (RK4) methods. The results show that optimizing the magnetic field, especially through a HALBACH-type configuration, can significantly enhance separation efficiency by improving the capture of non-ferrous particles.