Browsing by Author "Kirveskari, Lauri"

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    Design of horizontal phase-separators using computational fluid dynamics
    (2016-09-13) Kirveskari, Lauri; Vaittinen, Johanna; Purola, Veli-Matti; Kemian tekniikan korkeakoulu; Alopaeus, Ville
    Horizontal phase separator units are commonly used in the process engineering. The horizontal phase separators are based on the gravity; external force is not used to boost the separation. In the process industry, the separation of multiphase fluids is important to protect the other process equipment (e.g. pumps and compressors). Mixtures between immiscible multiphase fluids are usually found from the turbulent processes, where flow velocities are high. Gravitational separators are used to provide low enough velocities to separate these immiscible liquid-liquid or gas-liquid mixtures. The design of the gravitational phase separators is usually based on the design engineer's know-how and simple empiric correlations. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) offer tools to model different geometries and perform more extensive study to the flow phenomena. This gives the opportunity to simulate and evaluate the behaviour of different geometries and vessel orientations. In the literature part of this thesis the phenomena affecting to the gravitational separation is reviewed. In addition, the most important design parameters are presented. Furthermore, the CFD modelling of separation process is discussed, and a few example cases from the literature are reviewed. In the experimental part of this thesis two-phase gas-liquid separation is studied by CFD. Effect of several parameters, like the compression term, liquid droplet size, and the effect of turbulence model used were analysed. Additionally, several inlet distributer geometries were studied and analysed. The used model was found out to be sensitive for the studied parameters. Especially droplet size was found out to affect drastically to the results. When effect of different inlet distributers were studied, it was found out that the curved pipe distributers perform better than the impact plates. In addition, a small comparison between the single phase and two-phase model was performed. The similarities in flow patterns indicated that single phase modelling could provide accurate enough data to help compare designs. However, this is problem dependent and requires further studies.
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    Raskaiden öljyjakeiden prosessointi
    (2014-01-23) Kirveskari, Lauri; Jakobsson, Kaj; Kemiantekniikan korkeakoulu; Fabricius, Gunilla