Experimental study on performance optimization for full-scale swirl separator of air-water in PWR UTSG

Abstract

The separation of liquid water from the steam-water mixture is one of the key processes in U-tube steam generators, which is critical to assure the turbine safety by minimizing the water erosion damage. To develop a highly successful separator under actual operating conditions, air-water tests are carried out to study the effect of different separation heights above swirl vanes on the separation performance. The tests are based on a full-scale separator with the air superficial velocity ranging from 10 m/s to 19 m/s and the water superficial velocity including 0.127 m/s and 0.151 m/s. The moisture carryover in this work is in the range of 0.3%–0.6%, which increases with the air superficial velocity increasing. While the air velocity is under 13.8 m/s, the moisture carryover almost changes little with the increase of separation heights. Nevertheless, the moisture carryover decreases significantly with the increase of separation heights for the air velocity above 15.5 m/s. The pressure drop increases approximately linearly with the increase of the air superficial velocity, and almost remains unchanged for different separation heights. To obtain better separation performance in a wide range of operation conditions, the maximum separation height is recommended.