An Experimental Performance Evaluation for a Swirl-Vane Separator Using an Air-Water Test Facility

• Published in: Energies (Basel) 2021-11, Vol.14 (21), p.7072
• Main Authors: Kim, Kihwan, Kim, Woo-Shik, Lee, Jae-Bong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Design parameters; Design specifications; Experiments; Hydraulics; Moisture; moisture carry over; Multiphase flow; Nuclear power plants; Performance evaluation; Pressure drop; Research methodology; Scaling laws; Separators; swirl-vane separator; Test facilities; Two phase flow; two-phase pressure drop
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en14217072

The most important design parameters of a moisture separator to optimize the efficiency of a nuclear power plant are the moisture carry over and pressure drop. An air-water test facility was constructed to evaluate the design parameters for various types of conventional moisture separators in Korea. In this study, a half scale of swirl-vane separator was designed, and test conditions were defined based on the scaling law to cover a wide range of operating conditions. The moisture carry over was measured using an isokinetic sampling system for 34 different flow conditions. The MCO was in range of 0.30–7.05% according to the test conditions. Single and two-phase flow experiments were also carried out to identify the two-phase pressure drop characteristics. Based on the obtained results, the proposed empirical correlation model was extended to a submerged separator and applying these results to a full scale system is discussed in this paper.