403

Investigation of the oil–gas separation in a horizontal

separator for oil-injected compressor units
J Feng1,2 , Y Chang2 , X Peng1,2∗ , and Z Qu2
1
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an,
People’s Republic of China
2
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

The manuscript was received on 3 November 2007 and was accepted after revision for publication on 19 February 2008.

DOI: 10.1243/09576509JPE550

Abstract: This article presents an investigation of the separation process as well as the separation
efficiency for a horizontal oil–gas separator, which is widely used in the oil-injected compressor
units. The trajectories of oil droplets with different diameters in the separator were simulated
by using the discrete phase model in combination with the gas flow model. The laser diffraction
technique (Malvern) was applied to measure the oil concentration and thereby the separation
efficiency. By varying the parameters such as the oil injection flowrate, compressor discharge
pressure, and oil–gas mixture inlet velocity, the main factors influencing the separation efficiency
were identified. The results indicate that the trajectories together with the residence time of the
oil droplets in the separator vary significantly with the droplet sizes. The separation efficiency
increases from 99.81 to 99.93 per cent as the oil injection flowrate rises from 567 to 1182 l/h.
An optimal discharge pressure exists for the separation efficiency, and the highest separation
efficiency was obtained at a discharge pressure of 0.65 MPa. The simulated minimum oil droplet
that can be separated completely during the first step separation is ∼17 μm, which has a good
agreement with the measured data of 17.7–20.5 μm.

Keywords: oil–gas separator, two-phase flow, numerical simulation, oil droplet size distribution

1 INTRODUCTION compressor system. The separation efficiency of the

Oil-injected compressors are widely used in the fields
of refrigeration, gas processing, and power engineer-
ing owing to the higher energy efficiency and better
reliability than the oil-free compressors. Although the
oil injected into the compressor has a function of
cooling, lubricating, and sealing, it has to be sepa-
rated from the compressed gas to provide clean gas
for users. Therefore, an oil–gas separator is neces-
sary for the oil-injected compressor system, usually
arranged nearby the discharge port, and a low oil
content in the gas after separation is one of the key per-
formance indexes to the oil–gas separator as well as the
∗ Corresponding author: School of Energy and Power Engineer-
ing, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 28 Xianning Road, Xi’an, Shaanxi
710049, People’s Republic of China. email: xypeng@mail.xjtu.
edu.cn
oil–gas separator, evaluated by the mass concentra-
tion of oil in the compressed gas, is required to obtain
a level, e.g. <5 mg/m3 , for the braking compressed air
for railway vehicles [1].
In the oil-injected compressor system, the oil–gas
separator usually includes the first step separation and
the second step filter. The first step separation is based
on the inertial separation principle, in which larger oil
droplets are separated from the oil–gas mixture and
smaller oil droplets together with oil mist remain in the
gas, entering the second step separation. In this step, a
special filter is used to make the residual small diame-
ter oil droplets congregate and become larger droplets
to be removed. The higher the separation efficiency
in the first step separation, the lesser the oil quantity
enters the oil filter. Obviously, the first step plays an
important role for the separator, and the investigation
of the separation process is necessary for improving
the separation efficiency.

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404 J Feng, Y Chang, X Peng, and Z Qu

Up to now, limited information is available in the separation efficiency. The converged single-phase flow
open literature on the separation performance of the model coupled with the Lagrangian tracking method
oil–gas separator for an oil-injected compressor, espe- is used to predict the oil droplet trajectories in the
cially on the first step separation. Wang et al. [2] have separator and thereby the separation efficiency. A test
carried out a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) rig is set up to measure the separation efficiency as
study of the chamber geometry of the aero-engine well as the droplet size distribution at the exit of the
air/oil separator. CFD studies on aero-engine breather separator for better understanding of the separation
behaviours have also been published by Care et al. [3] efficiency. By measuring the oil droplet size distri-
and Hossain et al. [4]. A more detailed CFD inves- bution and concentration of the droplets leaving the
tigation on the droplet behaviour in an aero-engine separator at different working conditions, such as the
bearing chamber has been presented byWang et al. [5], oil injection flowrate, discharge pressure, and velocity
in which the Lagrangian droplet tracking method was of the oil–gas mixture into the separator, the separa-
used to understand the initial deposition locations tion efficiency is evaluated and the influencing factors
of the injected oil. Eastwick et al. [6] have estab- are identified.
lished a two-dimensional two-phase flow model to
analyse the effects of structures on the separation effi-
ciency of the aero-engine air/oil separators, in which 2 PHYSICAL MODEL AND NUMERICAL
the oil droplet trajectories were computed using the SIMULATION
Lagrangian method and the turbulent dispersion of
the oil droplets was not considered. Zhou et al. [7, 8] 2.1 Physical model
have performed the numerical simulation aiming at The structure of the oil–gas separator to be investi-
structure optimization of an oil–gas separator for an gated is shown Fig. 1. The separator consists of two
oil-injected screw compressor, but in their studies the parts, i.e. the horizontally laid tank and the filter verti-
first and second step separators were considered as cally laid on the tank. The oil–gas mixture discharged
a whole. Feng et al. [9] have tried to simulate the from the compressor flows through the inlet tube into
oil droplet traces of various diameters in a vertical the tank for the first step separation and the filter for
type separator, and the simulated results showed that the second step separation consecutively. The inlet
the position and diameters of the oil injection had a tube enters the tank eccentrically, having a 61 mm
strong influence on the oil droplet traces. However,
neither the separation efficiency was considered nor
the experimental validation of the model was included
in the study. Some experimental studies on the sepa-
ration efficiency have been carried out, nevertheless,
focusing on the impact of the separation efficiency
and pressure loss of the second separation filter on
the system performance [10, 11]. Eastwick et al. [12]
have reported their numerical simulation and exper-
imental study on the rotating oil/air separators with
different structures at various operating conditions for
aero-engine applications. Willenborg et al. [13] have
measured the performance of an aero-engine oil/air
separator at various rotational speeds and air and oil
flows, in which the oil droplets <10 μm were focused
on. The results indicated that the separation efficiency
gets better with higher rotational speeds and less air
flowrate [13].
As can be seen, previous studies on the oil–gas sep-
aration were mainly related to the separation process
within a chamber containing a rotating shaft for aero-
engine applications. Owing to the high-speed rotating
flow in the separator, the oil–gas separation process
differs significantly from that in a stationary separator
to be studied in this article.
The aim of the current study is to investigate the
separation process of the horizontal type separator,
which is widely used in the oil-injected compressor Fig. 1 Structure and physical model of the oil–gas
systems, and to identify the key factors influencing the separator

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 Oil–gas separation in a horizontal separator 405

offset from the centre-line (A-A view in Fig. 1(a)), equation (2) is expressed by
and turns left at 30◦ so that the mixture could flow    
towards the baffle, which is horizontally put in the ∂ui ∂uj 2 ∂ui
−ρui uj = μt + − ρk + μt δi,j (3)
tank on the left. Relatively large oil droplets are sep- ∂xj ∂xi 3 ∂xi
arated by impacting on this baffle. The oil separated
by the impinge drops in the bottom of the tank and The equation for the kinetic energy of turbulence is
then returns to the compressor, and the gas together expressed by
with the residual oil leaves out of the tank into the filter.
  
Another baffle is put at the bottom of the filter, forcing ∂   ∂   ∂ μt ∂k
the gas flow to change its direction for more efficient ρk + ρkuj = μ+
∂t ∂xi ∂xi σk ∂xj
separation. The second step separation of the residual
smaller oil droplets from the gas is mainly achieved + Gk + Gb − ρε − YM + Sk (4)
by the coalescence of oil on the surfaces of the filter.
The coalesced oil is gathered and flows to the bottom The equation for dissipation of the turbulence kinetic
of the filter and then into the compressor for circula- energy is expressed by
tion. As the investigation is focused on the first step   
separation, the filter for the second step separation ∂ ∂   ∂ μt ∂ε
(ρε) + ρεuj = μ+
is not considered in the physical model. Correspond- ∂t ∂xj ∂xj σε ∂xj
ingly, the separation efficiency indicates that for the ε2 ε
first step separation. + ρC1 Sε − ρC2 √ + C1ε C3ε Gb + Sk (5)
k + νε k

In equation (2), the momentum interaction Fi between

2.2 Mathematical model
the gas and the particle is expressed by
The flow of the oil–gas mixture in the separator is the  
gas–liquid two-phase flow. As the volume fraction of oil
18μCD Rep  
to gas is rather low, usually <10 per cent, it is reason- Fi = up,i − ui mp (6)
24ρdp2
able to assume that the oil phase is sufficiently sparse
and the interactions between oil droplets are negligi-
In equation (6), all the particles in the control volume
ble. The droplets are considered as spherical particles
are summed up and mp is the mass flowrate of the oil
and the discrete phase model is used for simulating the
droplets.
oil droplet motion, in which the oil particle streams are
The RNG k–ε turbulent model equation, i.e. the high
injected into the continuous gas phase.
Reynolds number model, is only applied to the turbu-
lent region with high Reynolds number. For the region
2.2.1 Governing equations for gas phase nearby the wall, the standard wall function method
was adopted.
For the continuous gas phase, the eddy flow and the
turbulent flow exist in the separator and were treated
with the RNG k–ε turbulence model. The standard wall 2.2.2 Governing equations for oil droplet motion
function method was employed to simulate the flow in For the oil droplet motion, the converged single-phase
the region nearby the wall. simulation coupled with the Lagrangian tracking cal-
The continuity equation is culation was performed to obtain the oil droplet
trajectories in the separator. The oil droplets with vary-
∂ρ ∂ ing diameters were released into the separator at the
+ (ρui ) = 0 (1) inlet and stopped when they reached the solid wall,
∂t ∂xi
where the oil droplets were assumed to stick to the
wall surface.
and the momentum equation is
The trajectory of the oil droplet is predicted by
  analysing the forces acting on the particle, which is
∂ ∂   ∂p ∂ ∂ui ∂uj written in the Lagrangian reference form. The inter-
(ρui ) + ρui uj = − + μ +
∂t ∂xj ∂xi ∂xj ∂xj ∂xi acting forces among oil droplets are ignored because

2 ∂ul ∂  the oil volume concentration is <10 per cent. Fur-
− δij + −ρui uj + ρgi + Fi (2) thermore, the Basset force, the Magnus force, and
3 ∂xl ∂xj
the virtual mass force are so small that they can be
neglected [14]. Therefore, only the gravity, inertial
Equations (1) and (2) are combined to form the mean force, viscosity force, and Saffman’s force [15] are con-
Navier–Stokes equations. The Reynolds stress term in sidered in the current study. The equation for the force

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406 J Feng, Y Chang, X Peng, and Z Qu

balance of one oil droplet can be expressed as 2.3 Numerical method

The governing equations were discretized using the
dup gx (ρp − ρ)
= + FD (u − up ) + Fx (7) finite-volume method [16] and the SIMPLE algorithm
dt ρp was employed to correct the pressure field [17]. The
calculations were carried out using the commercial
where the first item on the right-hand side is the gravity CFD code FLUENT 6.1 [18]. The numerical grid was
force per unit particle mass. The second item is the determined by compromising the computing time and
drag force per unit particle mass and the coefficient the size of the first cell required by the standard wall
FD is calculated by function method in the RNG k–ε turbulence model.
The grids were meshed to be so fine that the numer-
18μ CD Re ical results were grid-independent. The number of
FD = (8)
ρp dp2 24 computational cells applied in the model was 106 184,
with which the relative error for the calculated gas
where u is the gas velocity, up the oil droplet velocity, velocity at the outlet was only 1 × 10−5 in comparison
μ the dynamic viscosity of the gas, ρ the gas density, ρp with the case of 135 105 cells. The mesh of the phys-
the oil density, dp the oil droplet diameter, CD the drag ical model for the numerical simulation is shown in
coefficient. Re is the relative Reynolds number, which Fig. 1(b), in which the unstructured meshing method
is defined as was applied.

ρdp up − u 3 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS
Re =
μ
3.1 Test rig
The last term in equation (7) is the additional force,
including forces such as the thermophoretic force, the The test rig for measuring the separation efficiency of
Brownian force, and Saffman’s lift force. Because the the oil–gas separator was built up, as shown in Fig. 2.
other forces are much lower than the Saffman’s lift From Fig. 2(a), it can be seen that the oil–gas mix-
force, Fx is approximately equal to the Saffman’s lift ture discharged out of the compressor first flows into
force [15] and can be expressed as the oil–gas separator and then enters the measuring
section. The gas after separation flows through three
fine filters, followed by the gas reservoir. Finally, the gas
2K ν 1/2 ρdij
Fx = (u − up ) is discharged into the ambient after the flowrate was
ρp dp (dlk dlk )1/4 measured. The oil separated from the gas in the sep-
arator was circulated back to the compressor through
where K = 2.594, dij the deformation tensor, and ν the the oil circuit pipeline, which includes the oil cooler
kinematic viscosity. and oil flowmeter. The system was designed so that the
The velocity of the oil droplet can be predicted by discharge pressure and the flowrate of the oil injected
integrating equation (7) over discrete time steps. Fur- into the gas could be adjusted to identify the major
ther integration of the velocity yields displacement factors affecting the separation process together with
and thereby the trajectory of the oil droplet separation efficiency.
   The oil injection flowrate, which is measured by
the flowmeter following the heat exchanger, can be
xp = up · dt, yp = vp · dt, zp = wp · dt (9)
changed by modulating valve 1 installed in the main
oil injection line and valve 2 in the compressor suc-
When the trajectory equations are solved by integra- tion line. With the opening of valve 6 adjusted, the
tion over discrete time steps, the gas velocity is the discharge pressure can be stabilized at the required
mean gas-phase velocity. discharge pressure.
By gathering the oil from three filters with differ-
2.2.3 Boundary conditions ent grades downstream the oil–gas separator during
a period of runtime, the oil concentration in the gas
For the gas-phase flow, the velocity boundary con- flow out of the separator can be obtained. At the
dition was set at the separator inlet and the pres- given operating condition, the residual oil is collected
sure boundary condition at the outlet. Zero velocity from the three filters over 1 h runtime and an aver-
boundary condition was set at the wall. aged value was obtained. The final mean value was
For the oil droplet motion, the escape condition is derived from three averaged values obtained at dif-
set at the inlet/outlet and the trap condition is set on ferent times to reduce the impact of the mean value
the wall. on the accuracy of the results. Good repeatability was

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 Oil–gas separation in a horizontal separator
Fig. 2 Test rig
observed by comparing the data obtained at different
running times for the same operating conditions. With
the total oil flowrate flowing into the separator divided
by the residual oil in the gas out of the separator, the
separation efficiency can be estimated.
To obtain the distribution of the oil droplet sizes at
the exit of the separator, the laser diffraction technique
[19] was applied to validate the simulation results
and understand the oil–gas separation characteristics.
The laser diffraction method uses the diffraction of
parallel laser light passing through a particle cloud.
It offers a wide measuring range for particle sizes
between 0.5 and 1880 μm. The droplet size distribution
is derived from the radial light intensity distribution
of the diffracted light measured by a photodetector.
The detector unit was connected to a PC, which con-
trolled the data acquisition and analysis so that the
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407
characterizing parameters such as the mean droplet
size and volume distribution were readily available.
To guarantee the measurement accuracy and avoid
the oil contamination of the optical glass windows,
compressed nitrogen with 99.99 per cent purity was
introduced to surround the optical windows on both
sides of the measuring section, which had a diameter
of 32 mm and a thickness of 8 mm. As shown in Fig. 3,
the measuring section was equipped with the high-
purity nitrogen-shielded windows, providing optical
access to the two-phase flow.
The oil–gas mixture inlet velocity was calculated
from the measured gas flowrate. The maximum rel-
ative error on the inlet velocity is <0.5 per cent. As
the inlet pipe diameter was fixed at 30 mm, the inlet
velocities were changed by adjusting the discharge
pressures.
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408 J Feng, Y Chang, X Peng, and Z Qu

Fig. 3 Measuring section

3.2 Instrumentation
The thermometers with an uncertainty of 0.1 per cent
were used to record the temperatures at the separa-
tor inlet and outlet. The turbine flowmeter measuring
the oil injection flowrate had been calibrated at the
factory with an uncertainty of 0.5 per cent. A pressure
gauge with an accuracy of 0.5 per cent was used to
measure the discharge pressure. The gas flowrate was
measured by the nozzle device with an accuracy of
0.35 per cent. Three measuring cylinders with an accu-
racy of 1 per cent were used to measure the oil quantity
collected from three fine filters over a period of run-
time (1 h). For the Malvern equipment, the 100 mm
diameter lens was applied to measure the oil droplet
size ranging from 1.9 to 188 μm. Three data points
were acquired and a mean value was obtained. The
data points showed a good repeatability with deviation
below 1 per cent.
3.3 Test conditions
The separation efficiencies of the separator with dif-
ferent discharge pressures and oil injection flowrates
were measured. The discharge pressure ranges from
0.55 to 0.8 MPa, whereas the oil injection flowrate
changes from 600 to 1600 l/h. The distribution of the
oil droplet size at the exit of the separator was mea-
sured by varying the oil injection flowrate at a constant
discharge pressure of 0.8 MPa, in which five sets of
oil flowrates were applied, i.e. 1570, 1470, 1360, 1260,

Fig. 4 Simulated trajectories of oil droplets with different diameters

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 Oil–gas separation in a horizontal separator 409

and 1160 l/h. The influence of the oil–gas mixture inlet diameter of the oil droplet leads to obviously differ-
velocity on the separation efficiency was investigated ent trajectories and hence the separation time; larger
by changing the velocities from 8 to 12 m/s. oil droplet is easier to be separated and the residence
time tends to be shorter. The maximum residence time
reduces from 4.89 to 0.855 s as the diameter of the oil
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
droplet increases from 1 to 20 μm.
4.1 Simulated trajectories of oil droplets
4.2 Separation efficiency
As shown in Fig. 4, the trajectories were simulated for
the oil droplets with different diameters including 1, The separation efficiency is defined as the ratio of the
10, 16, and 20 μm, typically occurring in the oil–gas oil flowrate separated from the oil–gas mixture to that
separator in the oil-injected compressor systems. The in the mixture before separation
inlet velocity was 12.24 m/s and the Reynolds num-
ber reached 1.1 × 105 , so the flow was treated as the Vo.i − Vo.o
ηSep = (10)
turbulent flow. The computational conditions were as Vo.i
follows: discharge pressure of 0.8 MPa, discharge tem-
perature of 85 ◦ C, and the oil injection mass flowrate of where Vo.i and Vo.o are the oil flowrates at the separator
0.42 kg/s. It can be observed that the difference in the inlet and outlet, respectively.

Fig. 5 Simulated separation efficiency versus droplet Fig. 7 Measured oil droplet size distribution under dif-
diameter ferent conditions

Fig. 6 Measured oil droplet size distribution at the exit Fig. 8 Effects of discharge pressure and oil-injected
of the separator flowrates on the measured separation efficiency

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410 J Feng, Y Chang, X Peng, and Z Qu
The separation efficiency for the first step separa-
tion was calculated and compared among various oil
droplets with different diameters, as shown in Fig. 5.
It is shown that the separation efficiency is increased
from 73 per cent for a diameter of 1 μm to 100 per cent
for diameters >16 μm. In fact, the oil droplets with a
diameter >16 μm can be separated completely during
the first step separation.
Figure 6 shows the oil droplets size distribution
measured at a discharge pressure of 0.8 MPa, a dis-
charge temperature of 85 ◦ C, and the oil injection flow
of 0.42 kg/s. The experimental results indicate that
the diameter of the maximum oil droplets after the
first step separation is from 17.7 to 20.5 μm and the
corresponding volume concentration to the total oil
contents is only 0.2 per cent. This means that the oil
droplets >17.7 μm can be separated completely, which
is in good agreement with the simulated results (Fig. 5).
4.3 Measured oil droplet size distribution at the
exit of the separator
Figure 7 shows the measured oil droplet size dis-
tributions for different oil injection flowrates for
Fig. 9 Effects of the mixture inlet velocity on the measured separation efficiency
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the discharge pressure of 0.8 MPa and the discharge
temperature of 85 ◦ C. As can be observed, the max-
imum oil droplet diameter at the separator exit is
<20 μm, which indicates that the oil droplets >20 μm
can be separated completely from the gas during the
first step. It can be shown that the mass flowrate of the
larger oil droplets rises with the increased oil injection
flowrates.
4.4 Influencing factors on separation efficiency
4.4.1 Effects of discharge pressure and oil injection
flowrate
The effects of discharge pressure and oil injection
flowrate on the separation efficiency are shown in
Fig. 8. As can be seen, the separation efficiency
increases with the oil injection flowrate. The efficiency
increases from 99.81 to 99.93 per cent, as the oil
injection flowrate increases from 567 to 1182 l/h. This
phenomenon can be explained by the fact that more
oil exists in the large diameter of droplets as the oil
injection flowrate increases, which are thus easier to
be separated.
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 Oil–gas separation in a horizontal separator
The separation efficiency increases first and then
decreases with the discharge pressure. When the dis-
charge pressure is low, the inlet velocity of the oil and
gas mixture into separator is relatively high and, there-
fore, high separation efficiency is achieved because of
strong impact of the oil droplets on the baffler and
separator inner wall. However, most of the oil droplets
are considered to be separated by the gravity if the
mixture inlet velocity is getting lower because of the
higher discharge pressure. Therefore, there exists an
optimal discharge pressure, at which the highest sep-
aration efficiency is obtained. In the current study, the
highest separation efficiency measured is achieved at
a discharge pressure of 0.65 MPa.
4.4.2 Effects of the oil–gas mixture inlet velocity
Figure 9 shows the effects of the oil–gas mixture
inlet velocity on the separation efficiency. It can be
observed that the separation efficiency has a rapid
increase with the mixture inlet velocity first and then
a sudden decrease. The highest separation efficiency
occurs at the inlet velocity of ∼10.3 m/s. It can be
seen that the high separation efficiency implies a suit-
able inlet velocity, which further suggests that different
discharge pressure compressors require different sep-
arator inlet designs in order to obtain high separation
efficiency.
5 CONCLUSIONS
A systematic study of a horizontal oil–gas separa-
tor was performed. By simulating and measuring the
size of the oil droplets and concentration downstream
of the separator, the separation characteristics were
analysed and the factors influencing the separation
efficiency were identified.
1. The trajectories together with the residence of the
oil droplets vary significantly with the droplet sizes.
The maximum residence time reduces from 4.89 to
0.855 s as the diameter of the oil droplet increases
from 1 to 20 μm.
2. For the horizontal separator studied in this article,
the simulated minimum oil droplet that can be sep-
arated completely during the first step separation of
the separator is ∼17 μm; the maximum oil droplet
diameter measured at the outlet of the separator
ranges from 17.7 to 20.5 μm and the corresponding
volume concentration to the total oil content is only
0.2 per cent.
3. The separation efficiency increases with the oil
injection flowrates, but an optimal discharge pres-
sure exists for the higher separation efficiency. The
highest separation efficiency was obtained at a
discharge pressure of 0.65 MPa.
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411
Thus, it is effective and feasible to investigate the sep-
aration characteristics and to identify the key factors
influencing the separation efficiency in the oil–gas
separator by using the numerical simulation method,
aided by the measurement of the oil droplet size
distribution and separation efficiencies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research was supported by the National Natu-
ral Science Foundation of China (Research Project
50576072/E060204).
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