DEVELOPMENT OF A ROTATING CENTRIFUGAL SEPARATOR TECHNOLOGY FOR CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSORS

This paper presents the development and testing of an advanced rotating centrifugal separator. This design extends separation technology to higher velocity and flowrate capabilities suitable for use as an inlet scrubber for industrial centrifugal compressors. Because of the inherent compact nature of the device it is particularly useful for oil and gas applications on offshore platforms where size and weight have high value. In addition to the separator design, a non-dimensional separation parameter is developed from first principles and is shown to be useful in accessing the degree of difficulty of separation for rotating centrifugal separator devices. An overview of a novel design evolution procedure used to optimize the rotating centrifugal separator is also presented.