Numerical study of single-phase flow as a partial axial separator development
Swirling flow has been present in many engineering applications, i.e. turbomachines,
combustion chambers and cyclones separators. The focus of this thesis is related to
cyclone separators application. The development of compact separators, aiming to
meet some demands in the oil and gas production is the subject of this thesis through
a tridimensional model of compact axial cyclone. The separator consists on a swirling
device placed internally in a tube. The tube has constant diameter, the swirling device
is static where the flow is deflected by static vanes. From the geometric 3D,
monophasic and isothermal flow is evaluated where the main parameters are: velocity
field (axial and tangential components), swirl intensity and decay, vorticity and
pressure distribution, etc. Preliminary evaluation highlight that the model developed is
able to reproduce physical phenomena intrinsic to swirling flow when laminar and
steady-state conditions. Slice of full domain with periodicity boundary condition
accurately reproduce the results when compared to the full domain and allows a
significantly reduction on simulation time and post processing.