Simulation and experimental study of effect of vortex finder structural parameters on cyclone separator performance

•Increasing the diameter of the vortex finder will increase the value of the tangential velocity index When diameter ratio of vortex finder to cyclone is between 0.3 and 0.5.•The value of the tangential velocity index increases as the vortex finder insertion depth increases.•The peak value of tangential velocity migrates towards the wall as the diameter of the vortex finder increases, while decreasing in magnitude.•The BP artifical neural network can be implemented to predict the parameters of cyclone separators.