Effect of diameter ratio on liquid carryover in a separator drum

Full text of publication follows: The phenomenon of carryover, i.e. entrainment of liquid along with separated steam is observed in all the steam separators. Due to the risks, such as turbine blade erosion and radioactivity leakage, associated with it, it is desired to have an estimate of the carryover value. This is all the more important when the separation is only under the influence of gravity, as in case of the proposed Advanced Heavy Water Reactor in India. From the previous experimental and theoretical investigations, an empirical model for prediction of liquid entrainment was identified. To validate this model, experiments were conducted in an air water facility and some discrepancies were observed between the experimental and predicted results. This was attributed to the difference in the diameters of the riser and the separator, which was not accounted for in the previous investigations. In order to ascertain this, further experiments were conducted with riser diameter to be same as the separator diameter, the results of which agreed well with the identified empirical model. To resolve the effects of diameter ratio, geometry, liquid and gas flux (over the interface and in the riser), and the height above the interface where entrainment is measured, a set of experiments were performed. Based on the above comprehensive data, an empirical correlation is proposed to predict the entrainment, which has a wider range of applicability than the currently available models. (authors)