A Method to Design and Optimize Axial Flow Cyclones for Gas–Liquid Separation

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed design guide, optimization, and performance assessment for air-water separation of an axial flow cyclone. Axial flow cyclones (also known as swirl tube demisters, mist eliminators, or Austin-Write cyclones) have a range of applications in several different industries. This method of gas-liquid separation offers many benefits. Among these are high separation efficiency in high pressure applications (over 90% at 1 MPa) and an inline design that allows them to be more easily fitted into existing piping structures. Despite these benefits, there is a lack of recent literature on their design criteria and performance optimization. This research fills the gap in the literature by quantifying the effect of design parameters on water collection efficiency, ?_(water collection), and the air bypass efficiency, ?_(air bypass), defined as the ratio of the air mass flowrate exiting through the desired air outlet over the inlet air mass flowrate. A set of wide-ranging experiments were conducted to study the effects of gas-liquid flow rates, tube geometry, and relative injection angles to optimize water collection and air bypass efficiencies. The water collection efficiency exceeded 99.8% when the liquid streamline came in direct contact with the water drainage exit. An empirical correlation was developed to predict the swirl pitch as a function of the above design parameters. Predictions from the correlation were within 10% of the experimental results. The correlation can be used to design highly efficient in-line gas-liquid separators.

Numerical simulation and experimental study of two-phase flow in downhole spiral gas-liquid separator

“…Millington and Thew (1987) accurately measured the flow field rate distribution of the columnar separator according to the experiment, and the results showed that the spacing between the separator inlet and the overflow section was the main reason for determining the strength of liquid gas carrying phenomenon. Anderson et al (2021) took the axial cyclone as the research object to investigate the influence of gas-liquid flow velocity, inlet tube shape and relative injection angle to the gas-liquid separation performance, and they established an empirical correlation function to predict the vortex pitch, which could guide the design of efficient gas-liquid separator. Lan et al (2022) designed a downhole spiral gas-liquid separator suitable for high gas-liquid ratio (liquid content less than 10%), and analyzed the velocity field and pressure field distribution in the separator by using the RNG k-e turbulence model.…”

Influence of Structural Parameters on Separation Performance of Gas-liquid Cyclone Separator for Hydraulic Oil Tank

“…The result suggested that the separation e ciency was improved with the inlet necking ration raise. Kyle [21] proposed a design and optimization method for gas-liquid cyclone separator. Two performance assessment indexes, the water collection e ciency and the air bypass e ciency, were de ned to quantifying the effect of design parameters.…”