Although there are many designs of separators, their purpose is to remove water suspended in steam that cannot be discharged through a trap. Three types of separators are commonly used in steam systems.

baffle type-baffle or folded plate separator consists of many baffles. The fluid changes its flow direction several times in the separator. Due to the large mass and inertia of the suspended water droplets, when the flow direction of the baffle changes, the dry steam can bypass the baffle and continue to advance, and the water droplets will accumulate on the baffle. The large flow area of the steam-water separator reduces the kinetic energy of the water droplets. Most of them will condense and eventually fall to the bottom of the separator., Eject through the trap.

cyclone separator -cyclone or centrifugal separator uses a series of fins to create a high velocity cyclone, I .e., a high velocity swirling vapor within the separator.

adsorption type-There are obstacles on the steam channel inside the adsorption separator, usually metal mesh pads. The suspended water droplets are adsorbed upon encounter. When the water droplets are large to a certain extent, they fall to the bottom of the separator due to gravity. It is also common to combine the two forms of cyclone separator and adsorption, because the combination of these two methods will improve the overall separation efficiency.

The main difference between baffle, cyclone and adsorption separators is that the baffle separator can maintain a high separation efficiency in a large flow range, while the separation efficiency of cyclone and adsorption separators is only98%steam flow rate in13m/sbelow can be achieved, otherwise the efficiency will be very low. When the steam flow rate is25m/s, the separation efficiency is only50%.

studies have shown that the separation efficiency of the baffle separator is10m/s30m/scan be approached100 percent, the baffle separator is more suitable for steam systems when the flow rate fluctuates greatly. If the pipe is small, the flow rate of wet steam can exceed30m/s. One way to solve this problem is to increase the diameter of the steam separator and the upstream pipe diameter of the separator to reduce the flow of steam into the steam separator.