The effect of geometry and operation conditions on the performance of a gas-liquid cylindrical cyclone separator with new structure

Abstract

The hydrodynamic flow behavior, effects of geometry and working conditions of a gas-liquid cylindrical cyclone separator with a new structure are investigated by computational fluid dynamic and experiment. Gas liquid cylindrical cyclone separator is widely used in oil industry, refrigeration system because of its simple structure, high separating efficiency, little maintenance and no moving parts nor internal devices. In this work, a gas liquid cylindrical cyclone separator with new structure used before evaporator in refrigeration system can remove the vapor from the mixture and make evaporator compact by improving its heat exchange efficiency with the lower inlet quality. It also decreases evaporator pressure drop and reduces compressor work. The two pipes are placed symmetrically which makes each of them can be treated as inlet. It means when the fluids flow reverse, the separator performance will not be influence. Four samples with different geometry parameters are tested by experiment with different inlet quality (0.18-0.33), inlet mass flow rate (65-100kg/h). Compared with the experimental data, CFD simulation results show a good agreement. Eulerian multiphase model and Reynolds Stress Turbulence model are applied in the CFD simulation and obtained the inner flow field such as phase path lines, tangential velocity profiles and pressure and volume of fraction distribution contours. The separator body diameter (24, 36, 48mm) and inlet diameter (3.84, 4.8, 5.76mm) decide the maximum tangential velocity which results in the centrifugal force. The tangential velocity profiles are simulated and compared among different models. The higher tangential velocity makes higher quality of gas outlet but high pressure drop at the same time. Decreasing the inlet diameter increases quality of gas outlet pipe and pressure drop. High gas outlet quality is cost at high pressure drop. Increasing of separator diameter makes gas outlet quality increase first and then decrease but the pressure drop decreases all the way. The offset (0, 2.4, 3.6mm) of gas outlet is an insensitive factor which influences the quality and pressure drop little.