Article
Separation Characteristics of an Axial Hydrocyclone Separator
Jie Kou
1,
* , Zhaoming Jiang
1
and Yiying Cong
2
Citation: Kou, J.; Jiang, Z.; Cong, Y.
Separation Characteristics of an Axial
Hydrocyclone Separator. Processes
2021, 9, 2288. https://doi.org/
10.3390/pr9122288
Academic Editors: Arkadiusz Gola,
Izabela Nielsen and Patrik Grznár
Received: 1 November 2021
Accepted: 15 December 2021
Published: 20 December 2021
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4.0/).
1
College of Pipeline and Civil Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China),
Qingdao 266580, China; jiangzhm@163.com
2
East China Petroleum Bureau of China Petrochemical Corporation, Nanjing 210019, China;
congyy9695@126.com
* Correspondence: koujie@upc.edu.cn
Abstract:
An innovative axial hydrocyclone separator was designed in which a guide vane was
installed to replace a conventional tangential inlet, potentially aggravating inlet turbulence. The
characteristics of velocity distribution, concentration distribution, and pressure distribution inside
the separator were obtained through the numerical simulation of the turbulent flow of oil and water.
The results showed that the flow field presented good symmetry, which eliminated the eccentric
turbulence phenomenon in the conventional hydrocyclone separators and was beneficial for the
oil–water separation.
Keywords: axial hydrocyclone separator; guide vane; separation; simulation
1. Introduction
As oil fields continue to be exploited, most have entered the medium and high water
content stage, with the water content in the fluids that are extracted form oil wells being
as high as 80%, with some fluids even reaching water contents of 90% or more. As the
water content in recovered fluids increases, the load on the existing treatment equipment
in oilfields also increases, and the economic efficiency of the oilfield decreases. Therefore, it
is necessary to develop a high-water content crude oil pre-separation device that has the
advantages of a simple structure, high separation efficiency, and low pressure.
Hydrocyclone separators are widely used in oilfield water treatment and in other
fields as a piece of highly efficient and energy-saving equipment [
1
–
4
]. A conventional
hydrocyclone separator usually uses a tangential inlet structure that restricts the space
layout of the separator and that exacerbates turbulence in the inlet. Early researchers
focused on experimental studies of tangent cyclone separators. In 1967, the Torrey Canyon
oil spill in the North Sea oil field in the UK prompted Martin Thew and Colman to study
the use of static cyclone separators for oil and water separation [
5
]. The changes in liquid–
liquid cyclone separator performance under different flow fluctuations were then studied
by Trygve Husveg [
6
]. Young [
7
] et al. proposed a new cyclone separator geometry model
that was based on the 35 mm hydrocyclone that was designed by Colman and Thew. The
effects of the operating parameters and the geometric parameters (e.g., inlet size, cylindrical
segment diameter, cone angle, cylindrical segment length, inlet flow rate, and oil droplet
particle size) on the separation efficiency were studied experimentally. This type of tangent
cyclone separator is prone to flow field instability and has a large radial distance [
8
,
9
].
The axial flow air cyclone separator that was designed by Swanborn [
10
] avoids these
disadvantages very well. On this basis, Maarten Dirkzwager [
11
] introduced anaxial fluid–
liquid cyclone with a blade in 1996 and studied the internal flow field distribution of the
cyclone using a laser Doppler speedometer to discuss the effect of the velocity distribution
on the cyclone field. Following Maarten Dirkzwager, Stephen Murphy and RenéDelfo used
the Malvern Laser Particle Size Analyzer to measure changes in the sizes of oil droplets in
an online cyclone separator [
12
]. Through numerical simulations of axial flow separators,
Min Zhan et al. found that increasing the exit angle, torsion angle, and number of blades in
Processes 2021, 9, 2288. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9122288 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/processes
