Original Article

Proc IMechE Part C:

J Mechanical Engineering Science
The effects of the lower outlet on the flow 0(0) 1–9
! IMechE 2018

field of small gas–liquid cylindrical cyclone Reprints and permissions:

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DOI: 10.1177/0954406218768838
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Weibing Zhu, Liang Hu and Xiaobin Zhang

Abstract
In this study, the effects of the lower outlet on the flow field of small gas–liquid cylindrical cyclones are investigated using
Reynold stress turbulence model. Under the same operating conditions, four configurations with different outlet styles
and angles are established. The time-averaged tangential velocity, axial velocity, and root mean square velocity are
compared, respectively. It is shown that many local secondary flow patterns are present in small gas–liquid cylindrical
cyclones, and those flow patterns may cause serious energy losses. The lower outlet mainly influences the gas–liquid
cylindrical cyclones flow field in the central region. The small gas–liquid cylindrical cyclones with single rectangular outlet
provides a steady flow field and a large backflow zone, which are helpful in improving the separation efficiency. According
to the simulations, a single rectangular lower outlet is the optimal one for small gas–liquid cylindrical cyclones.

Keywords
Numerical simulations, small gas–liquid cylindrical cyclone, lower outlet, flow field, aero engines

Date received: 17 September 2017; accepted: 2 March 2018

Introduction
Due to the advantages of its simple geometry,
small space requirement, and low maintenance costs,
gas–liquid cylindrical cyclones (GLCC) separators are
widely applied in industry.1 For instance, GLCC
separators are used as alternative devices to replace
gravity separators in petroleum industry,2 and they
are also used in lubrication systems of aero engines
to separate the air–oil mixture collected from the
lubrication sumps.3 The complex flow patterns
taking place in GLCC body significantly influence
the separation efficiency, so many scholars investi-
gated the GLCC flow field numerically and
experimentally.4–9
With no moving parts, the geometry of GLCC is
simple. It is composed of a separator body, a tangen-
tial inlet, and two outlets located at the upper and
lower positions.10 Figure 1 shows the structure of a
GLCC separator. The gas–liquid mixture enters tan-
gentially through the inlet pipe and then rotates
downward in the GLCC body. Because of the differ-
ence of density between the gas and the liquid, gas
then leaves the wall of separator, and is collected by
the reversed flow. The liquid is pulled to the wall, and
leaves through the lower outlet. Arpandi et al.11 tested
the GLCC with a diameter of 76.2 mm, and developed
a mechanistic model for predicting the distribution of
the GLCC flow field.11 Kouba et al.12 studied the
effects of the inlet angle on a GLCC experimentally.
They found that a 27 inlet angle is an optimal angle
for the separator, which is helpful in decreasing the
phenomenon of liquid carry-over (LCO). Therefore,
this optimal angle is widely used for GLCC separators
with different diameters.13,14 Erdal15 studied a GLCC
separator by LDV experimentally. A strongly
nonaxisymmetric flow was obtained, and local LDV
measurements were used to improve the existing
correlations for swirling, axial, and tangential veloci-
ties. Molina et al.16 studied the effects of an annular
film extractor on a GLCC. They concluded that the
performance of the modified GLCC is improved in
the new structure. Hreiz et al.14,17,18 performed
numerical and experimental analyses for the swirling
hydrodynamics of GLCC separators, and studied the
effects of inlet geometry on flow pattern and perform-
ance. The results showed that inlet with a suitable
convergence can improve the separation performance.
Recently, Van Sy19 simulated the GLCC flow field of
twelve GLCC separators with different inlet angles.
College of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Harbin Engineering
University, Harbin, China
Corresponding author:
Xiaobin Zhang, College of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Harbin
Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China.
Email: zhangxiaobin@hrbeu.edu.cn
2 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)
The results showed that the inlet angle significantly
influences the flow field.
For the GLCC separator used in petroleum industry,
most researchers mainly focus on the influence of geom-
etry, angle, position and number of inlets, because the
inlet is one of the most relevant parameters influencing
the GLCC flow pattern and performance, as reported
in many articles.18–22 The height of the vertical pipe is
so big that the lower outlet has only small influences on
the main flow field. However, the GLCC separator,
used in lubrication systems of aero engines to separate
air bubbles from oil,3,23 has small geometrical dimen-
sions due to the inlet flow rate and the restriction of
available installation space. The lower outlet is very
close to the main flow field, and it will influence the
flow field in GLCC separator directly. Although some
studies have investigated the flow field in GLCC separ-
ator with different lower outlets,13,14,24,25 all of them
have not considered the effects of the lower outlet on
the GLCC flow field systematically.
The present paper aims at numerically studying the
effects of the lower outlet on the single-phase flow field
of a small GLCC separator. Firstly, four GLCC sep-
arators with different lower outlets will be constructed.
Secondly, Reynolds stress model (RSM) will be chosen
for all numerical simulations, and the features of the
flow field in small GLCC will be carried out. Finally,
the effects of the lower outlet on the flow field of small
GLCC separators will be studied in detail. Some rec-
ommendations are provided for a structure of optimal
design of small GLCC in industrial applications.
Figure 1. Schematic plot of a small GLCC separator: (a) geo-
metrical dimensions, (b) positions of the analyzed plane (mm).
Table 1. Geometrical dimensions of the small GLCC separator.
D1 (mm) L1/D1 L2/D1 L3/D1 L4/D1
16 1.56 3.25 0.81 0.63
Numerical model and simulation method
Lower outlet configuration of GLCC separators
Figure 1(a) shows a schematic plot of a small GLCC
separator. The positions of the analyzed plane are
performed in section Y1–Y4, as shown in
Figure 1(b), and the center of the GLCC bottom is
the origin of coordinates. Those sections are located
in the zones of the upper outlet, the inlet, the middle
and the lower outlet in the GLCC body. According to
our previous study,26 Table 1 gives the detail of the
geometrical dimensions, where a and b are the height
and width of the rectangular inlet, respectively.
To evaluate the effects of the lower outlets on the
flow field in small GLCC separators, the numerical
investigation was performed on four separators with
different lower outlets, as shown in Figure 2.
The lower outlets of A1 and A2 are rectangular, and
the lower outlets of A3 and A4 are circular. To avoid
other random factors, A1, A2, and A3 have a lower
outlet with the same area and axial height.
The detailed dimensions of the lower outlets are
shown in Table 2, where c and d are the height and
width of the rectangular outlet respectively and D3 is
the diameter of the circular outlet.
Turbulence model
A suitable turbulence model is vital for the swirling
flow in GLCC separators, since the complex flow
pattern taking place in such a separator.27 Previous
Figure 2. Separators with different lower outlets.
L5/D1 D2/D1  ( ) a/D1 b/D1
0.94 0.19 15 0.75 0.19
Zhu et al.
studies have used various turbulence models for the
GLCC flow field.15,17,19,24 As having the greatest
potential for predicting the behavior of strongly swir-
ling flows,19,28,29 RSM model is chosen to investigate
the effects of the lower outlet on the small GLCC
flow field.30
Boundary conditions
The working fluid is oil in this study with the liquid
density r ¼ 963.9 kg/m3 and the dynamic viscosity
 ¼ 0:001467 Pa  s. A constant velocity of 2.778 m/s
at the inlet to keep a constant flow rate, and an
absolute pressure (101,325 Pa) at the outlet boundary
surface is used. In addition, a no-slip boundary
condition is used on the walls. The time step of
5e–5s is used for the unsteady simulations.
Grid
All numerical simulations are generated into struc-
tured grids with the value of yþ 5 30, as shown in
Figure 2. We study the grid independence for the
simulated separators with different grid numbers.
Three levels of grids, using respectively 120,222,
248,472, 369,698 cells, are used for A1, as shown in
Figure 3. It can be seen that the separator with
120,222 cells is acceptable, as the difference between
the maximum and minimum grids is less than 5%.
To eliminate the random factors, simulations are car-
ried out by meshing the separator with 248,472 cells.
Table 2. Geometrical dimensions of different lower outlets.
A1 A2 A3
c/D1 0.75 0.38
d/D1 0.19 0.19
D3/D1 0.43
Figure 3. Computational velocities of the three grid levels: (a) Tangential velocity, (b) Axial velocity.
3
Results and discussion
Validation of the numerical results
The following method is used to simulate a GLCC
separator, as the velocity profiles measured by
Erdal.15 Figure 4 compares the simulated results
with the experimental data of Erdal.15 Because the
flow patterns are extremely complex in the GLCC
separator, we consider the simulated results as
acceptable.
The features of the flow field
To determine the features of the flow field in small
GLCC separators, the contour plots and the time-
averaged velocity profiles for A1 are analyzed.
The positions of the four sections are shown in
Figure 1(b).
The tangential velocity significantly influences the
performance of GLCC under the operating conditions
where gas and liquid exist simultaneously, because the
centrifugal force is the most important factor in
GLCC, which is helpful in increasing the separation
performance. The contour plots of the time-averaged
tangential velocity for model A1 are shown in
Figure 5. It can be seen that two flow patterns with
opposed directions are present in the measured plane.
This is caused by the swirling flow in the GLCC flow
field. The tangential velocity decreases towards the
central region, and the minimum value appears
around the horizontal axis. Due to the energy loss
in GLCC, the maximum value of tangential velocities
is decayed in the direction of the negative axis.
As shown in Figure 1, the position of Y2 is the nearest
to the inlet. The reason why there is an obvious
difference of the time-averaged tangential velocity
A4 between Y2 and other positons is less energy losses
in Y2.
The axial velocity reflects the flow direction in
0.43
GLCC flow field, which determines the ratio of the
volume flow from the upper outlet to that of the inlet.
4 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)
Figure 4. Comparisons of the simulated results with the experimental results: (a) Tangential velocity, (b) Axial velocity (Re ¼ 9285,
X ¼ 46.7 cm).
Figure 5. Time-averaged tangential velocity contours for
model A1 (m/s).
The contour plots of the time-averaged axial velocity
for A1 are shown in Figure 6. The axial velocity indi-
cates that two flow streams exist in the GLCC body: a
downward flow directs to the lower outlet and an
upward flow directs to the upper outlet. It can be
seen that the vortex helical pitch is clearly predicted
by the numerical results. In addition to the flow fea-
tures described above, some other flow patterns are
present in the GLCC flow field. Figure 6(a) gives the
circulatory flow at the top of GLCC. This flow pat-
tern will cause serious energy losses in the flow field.
Figure 6(b) shows the short-circuit flow near the
upper outlet. It indicates that parts of fluid from the
inlet are collected by the upper outlet directly, which
significantly influences the performance of GLCC.
Figure 6(c) shows the circulatory flow at the bottom
of GLCC, which affects the flow field near the lower
outlet, and causes vortex breakdown.
Figure 7 presents the velocity distributions of A1
from section Y1 to Y4. Due to the interference of the
upper outlet pipe, the distributions of tangential
and axial velocity are discontinuous in section Y1.
The trend of the axial velocity profiles in section Y1
is different from others, which is related to the effects
of circulatory flow at the top of GLCC, as shown in
Figure 6(a). The maximum tangential velocity in sec-
tion Y2 is larger than the values in other sections.
The phenomenon is related to the effect of the inlet.
The magnitudes of tangential and axial velocities in
different sections are similar except section Y1, which
means the small GLCC separator has a low energy
loss in the flow field. As shown in Figure 7, the
upward and downward flow streams present in
GLCC flow field. In the outer region, the axial
velocity increases with increasing diameter.
However, in the inner region, the axial velocity
decreases with increasing diameter. It is an inverted
V-shaped axial velocity profile for A1 in sections Y2,
Y3, and Y4. The distributions of the axial velocity
profiles at different sections are similar, but the
radial positions of the highest axial velocity in the
inner region are not fixed, which range from 0.2R
to 0.2R.
Effects of the lower outlet on the flow field
To evaluate the effects of the lower outlet on the
separator flow field, four models with different lower
outlets are carried out under the same operating
conditions.
As shown in Figure 8, the magnitudes of tangential
velocity near the wall are almost equal, whereas the
tangential velocities in the inner region show obvious
differences. It is observed that the difference increases
with decreasing distance to the lower outlet. This phe-
nomenon means that the lower outlet of small GLCC
Zhu et al. 5

Figure 6. Time-averaged axial velocity and local flows for model A1: (a) The circulatory flow at the top, (b) The short-circuit flow,
(c) The circulatory flow at the bottom (m/s).

Figure 7. Radial profiles of the time-averaged tangential and axial velocity for model A1 at different sections: (a) Tangential velocity,
(b) Axial velocity (Z ¼ 0).

mainly influences the central region of the flow field,
and has no significant effect on the tangential veloci-
ties near the wall. The tangential velocity distributions
of A2 are different from that of A1, in which the dis-
tribution symmetry of A2 is better than A1. The dis-
tributions of A1 and A3 are similar at each section.
The tangential velocity profile of A4 has significant
difference from that of other separators. The shape
of the profiles is obviously changed, in which the
forced vortex region is narrowed down and the free
vortex region is expanded. The maximum tangential
velocity in A4 is larger than that of other separators.
Similar to the tangential velocities, the magnitudes
of axial velocity near the wall are almost equal, but
they have obvious differences in the inner region. The
differences increase along the direction of the negative
6 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)

Figure 8. Comparison of the radial profiles of the time-averaged tangential velocity at different sections: (a) Y1, (b) Y2, (c) Y3, (d) Y4.

Figure 9. Comparison of the radial profiles of the time-averaged axial velocity at different sections: (a) Y1, (b) Y2, (c) Y3, (d) Y4.
Zhu et al.
axis of GLCC, as shown in Figure 9. In comparison to
A1, the maximum axial velocities of central reversed
flow for A2 and A3 are smaller, and the ranges of
reversed region (capture diameter) are narrowed
down. However, the distribution symmetry of A2 is
better than other separators. Different from other
models, the axial velocity distribution of A4 is a
double backflow reversal at section Y3, with down-
ward flow near the wall and double backflow appears
in the central region.
The study above analyzes the effects of the lower
outlet on the tangential and axial velocity profiles. The
turbulence intensity will change as the velocity changes
in the flow field. At any moment, the root mean square
(RMS) velocity value at the point reflects the turbulence
intensity in the flow field. To evaluate the effects of the
lower outlet on the turbulence intensity, the RMS vel-
ocity profiles are plotted in Figure 10.
As shown in Figure 10, the RMS velocity value
near the wall is small, and increases towards the
center. The phenomenon is related to the reversed
flow and the swirling flow, those complex fluid pat-
terns taking place in the separator increases the tur-
bulence intensity in its central region. In addition to
A1, the RMS velocity values of A3 are much larger
than the values of other separators, which means that
a horizontal circular outlet leads to high turbulence
intensity in the separator flow field. Under the
Figure 10. Comparison of the radial profiles of the RMS velocity at different sections: (a) Y1, (b) Y2, (c) Y3, (d) Y4.
7
operating conditions, the horizontal circular outlet
may increase the probability of bubble breakage,
and negatively affect the performance of the separ-
ator. Compared with the RMS velocity values of A1
and A4, the values of A2 are larger. The RMS velocity
values of A2 in section Y4 are larger than the values in
section Y3. It indicates that double rectangular outlets
led to a disturbance in the fluid field, and the outlets
increase the turbulence intensity. The trends of the
RMS velocity profiles for A1 and A4 are similar,
and the values are smaller than with other separators.
It shows that both single rectangular outlet and ver-
tical circular outlet can decrease the turbulence inten-
sity, and increase the stability of the flow fields in
small GLCC than the other two outlet types.
It can be seen that the effects of the lower outlet on
the flow field of small GLCC separator are significant.
As shown in Figures 8 and 9, the lower outlet has no
obvious effects on the tangential and axial velocity near
the wall, but it has significant influence in the central
region. The distribution symmetry of A2 is better than
A1, which means that double rectangular outlets can
eliminate the asymmetry in small GLCC. However, the
capture diameter of the central reversed flow is smaller,
and the turbulence intensity of A2 in the flow field is
stronger than that of A1. The flow pattern will reduce
the probability of bubble capture under the operating
conditions. The capture diameter of A3 is smaller than
8 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)
A1, and the RMS velocity values of A3 are much larger
than with other models. It indicates that horizontal
circular outlet leads to a strong turbulence intensity,
which negatively affects the separation performance
of small GLCC separators. The velocity distribution
of A4 has obvious difference with other models, in
which the free vortex region expanded and the force
vortex region narrowed down. Meanwhile, double
reversed flow pattern appears in the central region.
Although the maximum tangential velocity of A4 is
larger than others and the turbulence intensity is
weaker, the backflow zone is too small to capture the
bubbles under the operating conditions. A small back-
flow zone will lead to a higher gas carry-under (GCU)
phenomenon. Different from other separators, the
backflow zone of A1 is wide, and the turbulence inten-
sity is weak. As mentioned in Hreiz et al.,17 the turbu-
lence intensity of the flow field significantly influences
bubble turbulent dispersion, coalescence and breakup.
Thus, a weaker turbulence intensity leads to an easier
bubble coalescence process. Meanwhile, a larger cap-
ture diameter means that the bubbles could be collected
more easily. Thus, it should be helpful in increasing the
probability of bubble capture. In consequence, the sep-
arator with the single rectangular outlet is the optimal
one for small GLCC separators, among A1–A4.
Conclusions
In this study, we numerically investigate the effects of
the lower outlet on the flow field of small GLCC sep-
arators, in which the RSM model is used to manage
turbulence. The following conclusions are obtained.
1. A large number of local secondary flow patterns
are present in the flow field of small GLCC separ-
ator, and those flow patterns may cause serious
energy losses.
2. For small GLCC separators, although the lower
outlet has no significant effects on the flow field
near the wall, the central region is clearly influenced
by the lower outlet. By comparison with other
lower outlets, the single rectangular outlet is the
most suitable one due to the steady flow field and
the large backflow zone, which is helpful in increas-
ing the possibility of bubble capture.
In summary, our studies show that lower outlet has
a direct influence on the single phase fluid field, and a
single rectangular lower outlet is the optimal one for
small GLCC separators.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Appendix
Notation
a height of the rectangular inlet
b width of the rectangular inlet
c height of the rectangular outlet
d width of the rectangular outlet
D1 separator diameter
D2 upper outlet diameter
D3 diameter of the circular outlet
L1 length from top wall to inlet
L2 length from inlet to lower outlet
L3 length from lower outlet to bottom wall
L4 length from upper outlet to top wall
L5 length of central channel
 the angle of inclination of the inlet