Gas separation – Deflector – Fixed gas whirler or rotator means
Patent
1994-05-02
1995-11-14
Chiesa, Richard L.
Gas separation
Deflector
Fixed gas whirler or rotator means
55237, B01D 4516
Patent
active
054662729
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention concerns a separator adapted to separate the two phases in a mixture of a gaseous medium, such as steam, and a liquid medium, such as water, comprising a main tube which houses a means consisting of a set of curved blades which extend between the tube wall and a body centrally located in the tube and which serve to rotate or revolve the two-phase mixture passing through the blade means in order to cause the liquid in the mixture to be applied against the inside of the tube wall, thus forming a film thereon, said main tube comprising, in the area after the blade means, a substantially cylindrical section merging into a tapering or conical section in which is mounted an outlet tube which is adapted for evacuating the gas and which is coaxial with the main tube and has a cross-sectional area smaller than that of the cylindrical section of the main tube, the wall of the main tube having a plurality of perforations through which liquid from said film can escape while being separated from the gas.
Separators of this type are particularly suitable for separating steam and water in water-cooled nuclear reactors so that, as far as possible, only steam is forwarded to the succeeding power-generating turbines. In practice, the steam separators are arranged in a battery of 100-150 units in the upper part of the reactor (the upper plenum) so as to separate the water from the steam before this leaves the reactor and conduct the water to a suitable recipient.
It is a general aim of today's technique that the separation should yield steam which is as dry and free of water as possible to the succeeding turbines. Also, it is an ambition to design the separators so as to give a low and substantially uniform pressure drop. If some separators were to offer a markedly higher flow resistance than other separators in the battery, the mixture of steam and water, which always obeys the law of the least resistance, would naturally find its way through the separators offering the least resistance, while the other separators would remain inoperative or function with low efficiency. This is avoided if the pressure drop is about the same across all the separators. The total pressure drop across the individual separator is in the main determined by two factors: the flow resistance offered by the blade means, and the total area of the perforations in the main tube. If the flow resistance offered by the blade means is small and the perforation area is large, the total pressure drop is slight, and vice versa. In actual practice, however, the total perforation area is restricted by the condition that steam must not leave with the water through the perforations (if the perforation area were too large, steam might accompany the water through the perforations and thus be lost).
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
SE Patent 7309949-1 discloses a separator of the type described by way of introduction. This separator is based on the idea of giving the water-evacuating perforations a restricted total area in order to prevent steam from escaping therethrough, while the blade means is designed to offer a fairly small flow resistance so as not to cause too considerable a pressure drop across the separator. In practice, the total perforation area of the separators manufactured according to the SE patent amounts to 36-38% of the cross-sectional area of the main tube. The restricted flow resistance offered by the blade means is achieved by giving the individual blades a rather small axial extension in relation to their width. Roughly, the axial length of the blades is smaller than, or at the most equal to, their width. Further, the centrally-located body to which all the blades are joined is substantially cylindrical and has a small diameter compared with that of the surrounding tube. In addition, the blades have a comparatively high pitch (in other words a slight curvature). Taken together, these factors cause the two-phase mixture, rushing forward at great speed (e.g. in the order of 50-150 l/s), to pass through the b
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Henriksson Mats E.
Karlsson Rolf L.
Tinoco Hernan
Chiesa Richard L.
Vattenfall Utveckling AB
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