In a development project executed by CDS Engineering in association with Gasunie Research, the conventional Gasunie type cyclone scrubber was analysed and points for improvement were identified. Through the use of CFD calculations and high-pressure tests at the Gasunie Research facility, several geometrical improvements regarding the fluid flow inside the separator were tested. It was found that by optimising the separators internals, the pressure drop could be reduced with 50%. During further high-pressure tests it was verified that the separation efficiency remained the same.

The benefit of the optimised design is that when designing for the same pressure drop and separation efficiency, the separator vessel can be reduced in size, leading to savings on capital investment cost.

A case study was carried out for a gas-liquids separation section for a gas production plant. The gas comes straight from the wellhead and enters a CDS-GasunieԠtype separator. Liquids (hydrocarbon and water), as well as sand are separated from the gas. After cooling, the gas runs through a second CDS-GasunieԠtype separator, before entering a compression module and the downstream gas treating plant. Taking the conventional Gasunie cyclone as a base case, the vessel ID and Tan/Tan length could both be reduced to 84% for the new CDS-GasunieԠdesign, leading to lower investment costs for the combined pressure vessels and the separator internals.

Results of case study
	Conventional Design	Optimised Design
ID	835 mm	700 mm
Tan/Tan	4100 mm	3438 mm
Relative Cost	1.00	.85