Computational and experimental investigation of using an extractor in a vertical gravitational flash tank separator

Abstract

A vertical gravitational flash tank separator can be used to increase the performance of a refrigeration cycle. Using the vertical gravitational flash tank separator improves the effective area and enhances the heat transfer coefficient inside the evaporator. However, the vertical gravitational flash tank separator still needs further investigation to improve its performance. This paper provides an investigation study to demonstrate the improvement of separation efficiency using an extractor inside the vertical gravitational flash tank separator. Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) was used to assess the optimum configuration and dimension of the extractor. A series of experiments were performed to test and confirm the proposed CFD configuration of the extractor design. The results revealed that the extractor had increased the separation efficiency by 2 %. The CFD simulations gave a good agreement with the experiments; however, all the simulations underestimated the liquid separation efficiency by approximately 0.02 over the range of conditions tested.