Numerical study on the influence of pickup tube diameter on the gas-liquid flow inside a swirl separator.

Gas-liquid flow can be separated by using a swirl separator. One of the interesting parts to be investigated in the swirl separator is the influence of the pickup tube diameter. Therefore, its influence on the gas-liquid flow behavior inside a vertical pipe equipped with a static swirl separator element is investigated in this study by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Euler-Euler approach simulating water as the continuous phase and air as the dispersed phase was selected in this study. The significant difference in the gas-liquid flow characteristics was observed downstream the pickup tube from the simulations using the pickup tube diameter of 4 mm, 6 mm and 8 mm diameter. The best gas removal level was achieved by the pickup tube diameter of 8 mm [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]