Two commercial CFD codes were used to simulate the strongly swirling single-phase flow with core recirculation within an axial hydrocyclone. Both packages used a Differential Reynolds Stress Model with default constants for the turbulence closure. The effect of omitting wall reflection terms was also investigated and it was generally found that this lead to better agreement with experiment. Interestingly, the predicted velocity profiles from the two CFD codes did not agree with each other. Possible reasons for this are different turbulence modelling approaches with different terms for the turbulent diffusion and rapid pressure-strain terms. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.