Supersonic separator’s dehumidification performance with specific structure: Experimental and numerical investigation

Abstract

Supersonic separators are used in gas separation processes such as dehumidification of humid air due to high performance and its good pressure recovery. In the present study, a comprehensive numerical and experimental investigation on the hydrodynamic behavior of air as working fluid and dehumidification performance of supersonic separator have been accomplished. The effect of the operational parameters on shockwave’s position are examined. The outcomes show that by increasing the pressure level of supersonic separator, relative error between numerical and experimental results decreases from 20% to less than 10%. The effect of the operational parameters and humidity of inlet air on the dehumidification performance of supersonic separator have been investigated by proposing a new simplified method for predicting condensation. Results show that the improvement of dehumidification performance is about 5% for 2 bar increase of inlet pressure and 15% for 10 K decrease of inlet temperature. Moreover, with 0.05% increase in the molar percent of water vapor in the inlet air, the performance of supersonic separator is enhanced about 10%. In addition, decreasing the outlet pressure under specified operating conditions has no effect on performance of supersonic separator and only it could compensate the undesirable displacement of shockwave due to decreasing the inlet pressure.