Supersonic separators are compact devices capable of separating condensables of gaseous mixtures. Of special interest is theapplication of these separators in the dew point control of natural gas. Many researchers as well as industry pioneers haveinvested in the study of these separators in the past two decades and various prototypes as well as field ready models havebeen introduced. All of these designs are based on the concept of a swirling flow in a supersonic nozzle. The current workwas initiated to investigate possible alternate designs.In this paper, preliminary studies of an alternate design of the supersonic separators based on inducing centrifugalseparation using a U-shaped diffuser is presented. Computational Fluid Dynamics models were used to simulate the design,predict the flow dynamics of the gaseous mixture, and compare to the conventional swirl type design. A bench scaleexperiment was set up to verify the CFD models. It was concluded that the CFD technique is a valuable and reliable tool forthe study of these separators. Moreover, it was shown that potentially more efficient separation with a higher rate of pressurerecovery can be achieved with the proposed design when compared to the conventional designs.
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