A Study of the Performance Improvement of a Centrifugal Separator for Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow

기액이상류 원심분리기의 성능개선에 관한 연구

Gas-liquid separator has been designed for the sake of reducing expenses associated with production operations. To date, a number of gas-liquid separators have been installed and put to use for various applications. Despite the advantages of simple and compact configuration of separator with no moving part, its efficient operation is limited in terms of total pressure losses, separation performance and flow-induced noise and vibration, which are closely associated with the very complicated flow phenomena involved. In the present study, a gas-liquid centrifugal separator with a swirl vane is investigated for the purpose of water separation from compressed moisture air. The 3D Navier-Stokes equations are numerically solved using a fully implicit finite volume scheme. Based upon the obtained solutions, tangential velocities, centrifugal forces, vortices and total pressure losses are analyzed to find out the best design parameters. From the present study, several attempts are made to improve the performance of conventional separators of centrifugal type.