The flash tank separator is one of the most important components that can be used to improve the performance of a refrigeration cycle by separating the liquid from the gas–liquid two-phase flow and providing the evaporator with only liquid refrigerant. This technique increases the effective area and enhances the heat transfer coefficient in the evaporator. To optimize the size of the vertical flash tank separator for obtaining high separation efficiency, the effect of the size of the vertical flash tank separator needs to be considered. This paper investigates the effect of the size on the liquid separation efficiency of the vertical flash tank separator. This paper also assesses the usefulness of Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) in flash tank design, and this is achieved through experiments and simulations on a range of relevant configurations using water as the working fluid. The results revealed that the size has a significant effect on the liquid separation efficiency, as the highest value was achieved by the largest size (VFT-V5). The CFD simulations give a good agreement with the experiments; all the simulations underestimated the liquid separation efficiency by approximately 0.02 over the range of conditions tested.
The air-water two-phase flow plays an important role in many applications of industry fields. Usually, a 90-degree bend is used to connect pipes for changing the direction of flow which influences the two-phase flow pattern. In this paper, the effect of 90-degree bend under different ranges of gas and liquid superficial velocities on the two-phase flow patterns in the horizontal pipe located after the bend was experimentally investigated, and then results were presented and compared in a two-phase flow pattern map. Also, tomographic images and probability density functions were used to capture the cross-section void fraction and its distribution for the two-phase flow patterns. The results revealed that at low liquid and gas flow rates, a stratified-wavy flow pattern was observed as a dominant flow pattern. While the wavy-annular and semiannular flow patterns were observed at a high range of gas flow rates in the horizontal pipe. The results also showed that at the high range of liquid flow rate, bubbly, plug, slug, stratified-wavy, and wavy-annular flow patterns were observed in the horizontal pipe when the gas flow increased. The tomographic images and probability density functions gave good agreement with the experimental observations and results.
The 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.
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