Horizontal vapor-liquid separator

Claim 1

A horizontal vapor-liquid separator, which comprises: a housing providing a separation chamber; a substantially horizontally disposed cylindrical inlet tubing extending through the housing wall to said separation chamber and having the inner periphery of the downstream end of said tubing beveled at a given angle outwardly in a generally frusto-conical shape; means located within said inlet tubing for imparting a helical motion to the vapor-liquid mixture introduced into said tubing; at least three cylindrical pipes, coaxially aligned with the inlet tubing, and of the same inside and outside diameter as said inlet tubing along the entire length of said at least three pipes, each of said at least three pipes having its outer periphery upstream end beveled inwardly to form a generally frusto-conical outer facing, and the inner periphery of its downstream end thereof beveled outwardly to form a generally frusto-conical inner facing, the upstream end of one of said at least three pipes being inserted in the beveled downstream end of the inlet tubing and spaced therefrom to form an annular orifice and the other of said at least three pipes mounted in spaced sequence to define additional orifices; the upstream end of each of said at least three pipes being swaged to define an orifice of diameter less then the diameter of said pipes, and wherein the leading edge of each of said orifices is located within the said downstream bevel of the respective adjacent upstream inlet tubing and at least three pipes; a solid conical baffle means mounted with its apex toward the beveled end of the last of said at least three cylindrical pipes, and spaced therefrom for coalescing any liquid droplets remaining in the flow exiting from said pipe; means for removing liquid collected in the separation chamber; and exhaust tubing extending through the housing wall into said separation chamber in substantial axial alignment with the inlet tubing.