Accepted Manuscript

Coalescing oil separator for compressors

Jiu Xu , Pega Hrnjak

PII: S0140-7007(19)30290-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2019.06.027
Reference: JIJR 4447

To appear in: International Journal of Refrigeration

Received date: 3 March 2019

Revised date: 22 June 2019
Accepted date: 24 June 2019

Please cite this article as: Jiu Xu , Pega Hrnjak , Coalescing oil separator for compressors, Interna-
tional Journal of Refrigeration (2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2019.06.027

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Coalescing oil separator for compressors

Jiu Xu 1, Pega Hrnjak 1,2,*
1 Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering Science and Engineering,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 West Green St., Urbana, IL, USA
2 Creative Thermal Solutions, 2209 Willow Rd., Urbana, IL, USA
* Corresponding author: pega@illinois.edu +1-217-390-5278

Abstract
Oil separation is commonly needed in air conditioning or refrigeration systems to reduce the oil circulation
rate and keep the oil inside the compressor. For compactness, the oil separation structure integrated into the
compressor is more and more popular than traditional external oil separator. However, a quantitative guideline
for the design of oil separation structure is missing for irregular geometry and realistic flow condition at the
compressor discharge. This paper presents coalescence, one of the basic mechanisms of droplet separation,

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studied by flow visualization and analytical models. The misty oil flow through separator is visualized by a
high-speed camera and analyzed quantitatively. Oil droplet size distribution is estimated by video processing.

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Important flow details are revealed, including oil droplet collision, oil droplet coalescence, oil film breakup, and
re-entrainment. Separation efficiency is estimated by the ratio between drained and incoming oil mass flow rate.

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Pressure drop is also measured to evaluate the cost brought by separation structures. An analytical model for
coalescing oil separator is developed based on the mass flow balance through multiple layers of coalescing
separators. Development of the model starts with the experimental and analytical analysis of first one wire, then
a serious of wires to come to a wire pad. The results of the model are verified by experimental measurements
in a full vapor compression system with R134a and PAG oil. The results of the model show good agreement

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with experiment and conclusion provides guidelines for oil separator design and operation.

Keywords: Oil, separator, coalescence, droplet, compressor

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1. Introduction
1.1 Oil discharged by the compressor
Oil management is one of the critical issues of compressor design. The purpose of oil management is to keep
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oil inside the compressor and to reduce oil circulation in other system components. Oil inside the compressor
ensure the lubrication, sealing, and cooling of the internal components. Oil circulation in other system
components, like heat exchangers and expansion valves, brings undesired effect. Oil may bring a lower heat
transfer coefficient, higher pressure drop, and potential refrigerant distribution problem to the heat exchanger
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(DeAngelis and Hrnjak, 2005; Li and Hrnjak, 2015, 2014, 2018). In some cases , however, oil can increase the
heat transfer coefficient even at an almost insignificant increase of pressure drop by introducing the wetting
effect of foam (Kim and Hrnjak, 2012).
The characteristics of oil flow at the compressor discharge were identified as oil mist inside the compressor
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plenum by Toyama et al. (2006). They proposed a method to quantify oil droplet behavior using high-speed
photography in the scroll compressor shell via sight glasses. Oil droplet size distribution and mean diameter
were determined based on the video recordings. Both of them were important design parameters for reducing oil
discharge flow rate. It was concluded that the mean diameter of oil droplets decreases as the flow speed of the
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refrigerant gas increases.

Zimmermann and Hrnjak (2015, 2014a, 2014b) captured the opening and closing process of the discharge
valve of a scroll compressor. The video showed atomization of oil at the valve in discharge and at the
compressor exit. A similar distribution trend was observed at higher compressor speed but with smaller oil
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droplets.
After leaving the compressor, the oil flow is identified as developing mist-annular flow in the discharge pipe
by (Wujek and Hrnjak, 2011). A set of tools have been developed to quantify the mist-annular flow in the
compressor discharge pipe in realistic working conditions.
Xu and Hrnjak (2017a, 2018) analyzed the oil flow details in the plenum of a 10 kW scroll compressor. The
behavior of oil droplets near the compressor discharge was predicted by CFD simulation, and the results were
verified by visualization results. Simulation of the flow of oil droplets for different geometries of the
compressors under different working conditions is provided by numerical tools.
1.2 Oil Separators for compressors
Oil separators are commonly used in refrigeration or air conditioning systems to reduce the oil circulation
ratio (OCR). OCR is a widely accepted parameter to quantify the amount of oil circulating in the system. It is
defined as the mass flow rate of oil divided by the total mass flow rate of the refrigerant-oil mixture in the

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system. The ideal goal is to remove all the oil from the refrigerant-oil mixture at compressor discharge so that
no oil escapes from the compressor and it has no effect on heat transfer or pressure drop. In reality, the oil
separator has a certain separation efficiency (below 100%), and it introduces an extra pressure drop and volume.
Typically, the oil separator is installed between the compressor discharge and condenser inlet, where the
refrigerant is in the vapor phase. The separation structure captures the oil mist, and the oil drains down to the
bottom of the separator due to gravity. The volume of the oil separator can hold some oil temporarily. The oil
will return to the crankcase of the compressor when it reaches a certain level. For compact systems, it is more
common to integrate some oil separation structure into the extended volume of the compressor. Designing the
oil separator has a trade-off between three main aspects: separation efficiency, volume, and pressure drop.
These three aspects can affect each other when we vary the geometry design and incoming flow conditions. For
compressor applications, the optimization goal is to achieve better separation efficiency in a smaller volume and
at an acceptable pressure drop. Good oil separator design requires the knowledge of the oil mist characteristics at
the compressor discharge (section 1.1), the basic mechanisms of oil mist elimination (section 1.3) and the

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performance of the separation structure under different working conditions (section 3).
1.3 Coalescing separation mechanism

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The oil separator design relies on understanding the basic mechanisms of mist elimination. Except for some
electrical or chemical separator, most of the oil separators use mechanical mechanism. Though different

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technical vocabulary is used in literature, mechanical mechanisms can be described as three general types:
coalescence, impingement, and centrifugation. Due to the limitation of length, this paper focuses on the
coalescing separation mechanism only, others will follow.
Widely applied in the chemical and process industry, the coalescing separator is a common option to

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eliminate the mist in the vapor flow. The basic principle of coalescence is that two or more droplets merge and
form bigger droplets when the mist passes through a coalescing media. The coalescing separator includes many
subcategories, like wire mesh pad, packed column, woven filter, etc.
Most of the previous researchers (Al-Dughaither et al., 2011, 2010; El-Dessouky et al., 2000; York and
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Poppele, 1963) reported their results as an empirical correlation. Typically, the separation efficiency or pressure
drop of a coalescing separator is plotted as a function of droplet diameter, vapor velocity, wire diameter, wire
mesh pad bulk density, etc. These correlations are usually straightforward, but it is difficult to generalize the
conclusion and apply it in other scenarios. Brunazzi and Paglianti (2000, 1998) tested the knitted wire mesh and
provided general design guidelines. Mullins et al. (2004) are among the earliest researcher looking at the
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microscale details of coalescing filters. Though coalescence is one of the most significant mechanisms in mist
elimination, studies of liquid-mist separation are limited to empirical correlations.
This paper focuses on the coalescing oil separator used for refrigerant compressor specifically. What makes
the compressor oil separator different from other application is the specific droplet characteristics, the oil-
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refrigerant properties, and the design trade-off consideration. For compressor oil separation, a structure made of
wire mesh is the most common way to utilize coalescing mechanism to separate oil mist from the refrigerant
vapor. As far as the authors know, there is no paper in open literature focusing on the characterization and the
analysis of the coalescing oil separator used for refrigeration and air conditioning application. Nevertheless,
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engineers have published patents regarding this kind of design.

Nakajima et al. (2000) issued a patent for the oil separator integrated into the scroll compressor. As shown in
Fig. 1(a), a circle of coalescing media is placed around the discharge port of the scroll compressor. The yellow
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arrow shows the flow direction of the oil mist. As shown in Fig. 1(b), Dieterich (2002) proposed an outer
housing design that has the wire mesh oil separator integrated into the screw compressor. The refrigerant-oil
mixture discharged by the screw compression chamber is guided by the discharge pipe (as shown in yellow
arrow). Then the oil mist flows through the vertically oriented wire mesh pad, and most of them are captured by
the coalescing media.
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Though a number of patents have been published on this topic, a practical design guideline of coalescing oil
separator for compressors is still missing.

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(a) (b)
Fig. 1: Practical coalescing oil separator design (a) A ring-shape coalescing oil separator for scroll compressor
(Nakajima et al., 2000) (b) A pad-shape coalescing oil separator in a screw compressor (Dieterich, 2002)

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1.4 Motivation of this paper

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With the background and motivation mentioned above, this paper focuses on the characterization and design
of the coalescing oil separator for compressors. First, experimental measurement and flow visualizations are the
primary tools to quantify the flow details of a coalescing oil separator. This paper shows the oil-refrigerant

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mixture flowing through a coalescing oil separator under the realistic compressor discharge condition. Images or
videos of the interaction of oil mist and the separator are valuable to understand the separation mechanism.
Second, the simultaneous measurement of the separation efficiency and pressure drop of separation structures
are used to evaluate the performance of different oil separator designs under different upstream flow conditions.

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The experimental results are used to evaluate the geometric design of coalescing oil separators. Third, this paper
develops a semi-empirical model that can explain the observed phenomenon. This easy-to-implement model
provides guidelines for the oil separator and validated by the experiments.
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2. Methods
1.5 Experimental setup
An air conditioning test bench is built for this study to quantify the performance of the oil separation
structure and capture the video of refrigerant-oil mixture simultaneously (Fig. 2). A swashplate reciprocating
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compressor works as the source of oil mist flowing into the oil separator. The swashplate reciprocating
compressor is selected because it has no oil sump so that it is relatively easier to control the system OCR in a
wider range (2% to 10%), compared to other types of compressors (like rotary or scroll compressors). Typically,
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the system OCR increases as the compressor speeds up. The speed of the compressor is controlled by a motor
and a variable frequency driver. The refrigerant-oil mixture leaving the compressor enters the visualization
chamber. Part of the oil is separated and accumulates to form a steady oil level in the draining pipe.
The flow visualization is realized by putting a transparent visualization chamber between the compressor
outlet and the condenser inlet. Separation structure of various geometries is installed into the chamber for the
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test. The visualization chamber serves as the container while the separation structure is the filler.
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Fig. 2: Experimental setup for oil separation study

Valve 3 and 4 (shown in Fig. 2) control the flow of collected oil from the bottom of the chamber to the
suction of the compressor. The valves are controlled in such a way that the oil level in the oil level indicator is
steady over time. In this way, the mass flow rate (ṁdrain) of the returned oil is measured by a Coriolis type mass
flow meter (mass flow meter 2). Valve 3 and 4 are adjusted to ensure that only single-phase oil pass the mass

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flow meter. The refrigerant-oil mixture after partial separation flows through the condenser, expansion valve,
evaporator, and finally returns to the compressor.
In the liquid line between the condenser and the expansion valve, the mass flow rate of the system (ṁsystem) is
measured by another Coriolis type mass flow meter, and the OCR is measured by and a speed-of-sound type oil
concentration meter. The oil concentration meter is calibrated by comparing the meter reading with the result
using traditional sampling method (ASHRAE Standard 41.4, 2006).
The separation efficiency is the most important parameter to evaluate the performance of an oil separator. In
this experimental setup, two separation efficiencies are measured: overall separation efficiency and structure
separation efficiency. The overall separation efficiency is defined as the mass flow rate of the actually separated
oil by the entire oil separator divided by the mass flow rate of the oil coming to the oil separator. The overall
separation efficiency considers the separation caused by the chamber and the separation structure together. With
the measurement of ṁdrain and ṁsystem, the overall separation efficiency can be calculated by equation (1). Here,
ω is the solubility of refrigerant in the refrigerant-oil mixture, determined by the property correlations by Seeton

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and Hrnjak, (2009). OCR is the oil circulation ratio measured by the OCR meter in the liquid line.
̇ ̇
(1)

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̇ ̇ ̇
Compared to the overall separation efficiency, structural separation efficiency is preferred when we want to
compare different separation structures in a specific volume. The structure separation efficiency excludes the

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effect of the container volume and focuses only on the separation structure itself. It is defined as the mass flow
rate of drained oil by the separation structures divided by the total mass flow of oil droplets going to the
separation structure. In this experimental setup, it is determined by comparing the video taken before and after
the filler. The mass flow rate of oil mist before and after the filler is estimated by the sampling video taken

after structure.”
̇ ̇
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before and after the filler. The video locations are shown in Fig. 3. In this way, the filler separation efficiency is
calculated by equation (2). Here the subscript “bs” refers to “before structure” while the subscript “as” refers to

(2)
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̇
Pressure drop is another critical parameter of the oil separator. A differential pressure transducer is installed
to measure the pressure drop across the separation structure. The high-side and low side of the differential
pressure transducer are connected to the inlet and the outlet of the separation chamber for visualization,
respectively.
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1.6 Flow visualization

As shown in Fig. 3(a), the test section is assembled with aluminum frames and transparent windows. Two
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transparent windows are installed symmetrically on the side of the aluminum body. One inlet hole and one
outlet hole are in the direction of flow while another hole for draining oil is located at the bottom of the frame.
Two smaller holes on the top of the block are reserved for differential pressure transducer connections. O-rings
and gaskets are used to seal the test section and hold the pressure at the compressor discharge. The visualization
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chamber is designed to provide relatively uniform incoming vapor flow on the cross-sectional area. The design
of the test section makes oil mist flow visible, but the disadvantage is that the geometry slightly differs from the
original one.
The backlight provides high contrast between the bright background and dark image of the droplets so that
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the camera can capture the clear video of the oil mist and the details of the separation. Videos of oil mist are
taken before, on, and after the separation structure at the steady state of the system. The locations of where the
videos are captured are shown in Fig. 3(b). Qualitative videos of flow details in the separation structure provide
a general image of the interaction between the oil droplets and the separation structure.
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Quantitative videos are also captured and processed using video processing techniques to estimate the
droplet size distribution and oil volume fraction. Droplet size distribution shows the distribution of oil droplet
diameter of oil droplets captured by the flow visualization. Droplet size distribution shows the distribution of oil
droplet diameter of oil droplets captured by the flow visualization. The oil volume fraction is defined as the
volume of oil droplets divided by the sum of the volume of refrigerant vapor and the volume of oil droplets at a
specific location. Both parameters have a significant impact on the oil separator performance. The uncertainty of
the video processing result mainly comes from the edge detection of the oil droplets and the depth of focus
determination. The details of oil droplet size and the control Another source of uncertainty is the standard error
of multiple videos taken at the same location and the same flow condition.

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(a)

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(b)

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Fig. 3: Visualization chamber for oil separator tests (a) structure of the chamber; (b) location where the video is

1.7 Processing of visualization results US

captured

A set of video processing techniques were developed to quantify the videos of the oil mist flow by Wujek
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and Hrnjak (2011) and Xu and Hrnjak (2017b, 2016).The video processing program can be briefly described in
the following steps. First, eliminate the wave pattern by subtracting the average pixel value in the period of time.
Second, estimate the droplet size by identifying the boundary of the droplets. The boundary is determined by
steepest grayscale gradient and modification of focal distance. Third, compare two consecutive images in small
sections to interrogate potential displacement. Last, calculate the droplet size distribution and the droplet
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velocity distribution of the droplet bulk by processing thousands of frames.

In this study, only videos of oil mist before and after the separation structure are processed to get the droplet
size distribution and liquid volume fraction of a cluster of oil droplets. By processing the video of the oil mist
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before and after the coalescer, droplet size distribution, droplet velocity distribution, and liquid volume fraction
are obtained for further analysis.

3. Experimental Results
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1.8 Test conditions

The experiments were carried out to study both the effect of flow condition and the effect of geometric
design on the performance of the coalescing separators. Each separating structure is tested under the same group
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of working conditions. The general test conditions are listed in Table 1. For different working conditions, the
system mass flow rate changes while the compressor discharge pressure and temperature are maintained as the
same by adjusting the condensing and evaporating capacity. Relatively low temperature (80 °C) and pressure
(750 kPa) are chosen to reduce the pressure to the polycarbonate cover of the visualization chamber. All the
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measurements are made at steady state.

In the transition between system steady state, the refrigerant and oil mixture flow in the bypass line. At the
steady state, the flow goes through the visualization chamber, and the flow details are captured by the high-
speed camera.

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Table 1: General test conditions

Type of refrigerant R134a
Type of oil PAG 46
Swashplate
Type of compressor
reciprocating
With oil sump? No
Compressor speed 1800 RPM
Mass flow rate 6 ~ 20 g/s
OCR before separator 2 ~ 10%
OCR after separator 0.5 ~ 1.5%
Compressor discharge pressure 750 kPa

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Compressor discharge temperature 80 °C

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1.9 Effect of flow condition
1.1.1 Refrigerant vapor flow

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The performance of a particular separation structure is influenced by the vapor flow condition and the
characteristics of the oil mist. The actual flow field and the corresponding oil droplet distribution through a
coalescer are very complex; the discussion is simplified by focusing on the overall vapor flow velocity.
For the refrigerant vapor, vapor superficial velocity is used to represent how fast the refrigerant-oil mixture
passes the separation structure. Vapor superficial velocity is defined as the volumetric flow rate of the

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refrigerant-oil mixture in the test section divided by the cross-sectional area of the test section, as shown in
equation (3). The reason to use vapor superficial velocity instead of mass flow rate as the primary variable is
that the mass flow rate is strongly affected by the system working condition and compressor type. Conclusions
based on vapor superficial velocity are more generalizable so that they can be applied in oil separation for
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different compressors and fluids. In the plots below, the mass flow rate of the system is also plotted in the
secondary horizontal axis as a reference. For a filtering-type oil separator, the vapor superficial velocity can also
be referred to as the “filtering velocity”, which is more commonly used in filter design.
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(3)

As defined in equation (3), the vapor superficial velocity is a linear function of the total system mass flow
rate when the pressure and temperature are maintained the same for different working conditions. In this way,
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the vapor phase superficial velocity can be a representative parameter to quantify the system mass flow. The
change in the mass flow rate will also bring the change of the oil mass flow rate and oil mist characteristics. It
will be ideal if different flow parameters can be controlled independently. However, in reality, the flow
parameters, like vapor velocity and droplet size distribution, are coupled. So, in this paper, we use vapor
superficial velocity as a representative parameter to distinguish different flow conditions. More importantly,
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these flow conditions are realistic compressor discharge conditions.

1.1.2 Oil mist characteristics
The oil ejected by the compressor forms annular-mist flow in the discharge pipe before it enters the
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separation chamber. For most of the oil separation cases, the main target is the oil mist. So, a straightforward
way to evaluate the separation performance is comparing the oil mist entering and leaving the separator.
With the flow visualization setup, videos of oil mist before/after the separator are captured and quantified the
video to get the size distribution of the oil droplet. Fig. 4 shows two video frame samples of oil mist before and
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after the separating structure. The locations where these videos are captured are shown in Fig. 3. By comparing
two video frames in Fig. 4, it can be concluded that fewer oil droplets appear in the video of oil mist leaving
separator than that in the video of oil mist entering separator. Almost 100% of the oil droplets larger than 150
μm are separated while small oil droplets are partially captured by the separating structure. From the separation
efficiency point of view, the coalescing structure shown in Fig. 4 can achieve about 70% separation efficiency
at this specific flow condition.

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Fig. 4: Droplet size distribution before/after the ‘BM’ structure (see Table 2) at vapor superficial velocity of
0.27 m·s-1

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The droplet size distribution provided by the video processing is also shown in Fig. 4. The droplet diameter
of the oil mist follows the log-normal distribution. It is not surprising to see the total mass flow rate contributed
by the oil mist decreases after the oil mist passes through the coalescer. Also, the mean droplet diameter
becomes smaller when the oil mist passes through the coalescer, which indicates that bigger oil droplets are
easier to be separated.

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Though the droplet size distribution is a good way to describe the oil mist before or after the separator, it
contains too much information for a simple comparison between one working condition with another. We can
use the oil volume fraction and oil droplet volumetric mean diameter as two concentrated parameters to
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represent the oil mist characteristics at one particular flow condition.
The oil volume fraction is defined as the volume of oil droplets divided by the sum of the volume of
refrigerant vapor and the volume of oil droplets at a specific location. It reflects how concentrated the oil
droplets in the refrigerant-oil mixture. The higher the oil volume fraction is, the more oil droplets flow with the
refrigerant vapor through a specific volume within a specific period of time. In this study, the oil volume
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fraction is determined by the video processing results. The techniques have been briefly discussed in 2.3.
Fig. 5 shows the effect of system mass flow rate on the oil volume fraction before and after the coalescer.
The coalescing separator captures most of the oil mist so that the oil volume fraction decreases through the
coalescer. In general, higher system mass flow rate introduces a higher inlet oil volume fraction and
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correspondingly higher outlet oil volume fraction. This indicates that the separation performance gets worse
when the system mass flow rate gets larger. The trend also agrees with the common observation that OCR
increases as the mass flow rate increases.
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Fig. 5: The effect of the flow condition on the oil volume fraction of the benchmark coalescing structure
Droplet mean diameter reflects the overall size of the oil droplets as a simplification of droplet size
distribution. There are many ways to calculate the mean diameter of a group of oil droplets. Here we use the
volume mean diameter defined by equation (4), where N is the total number of oil droplets, ni is the number of
droplet n a certain size range, di is the diameter of the droplet in a certain size range. The volumetric mean
diameter is a representative description of the size of the oil droplets considering the droplet volume.

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( ∑ ) (4)

Fig. 6 shows the effect of system flow rate on the oil droplet mean diameter before and after the coalescer.
The locations where the videos are captured are shown in Fig. 3. In general, droplet mean diameter at the
discharge of the compressor (before the coalescer) decreases as the vapor superficial velocity increases. The
volumetric mean diameter of the oil droplets after the coalescer is smaller than that before the coalescer. This is
because the separation takes place when smaller droplets coalesce into bigger droplets and bigger droplets tend
to deviate from the vapor flow and settled down to the bottom. When the sampling video is captured after the
coalescer, only escaped small oil droplets are counted.

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Fig. 6: The effect of the incoming flow condition on the oil droplet mean diameter of the benchmark coalescing
structure
1.1.3 Separation efficiency
Here we focus on how the flow condition affects the separation efficiency of a particular separating
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structure. Fig. 7 plots the separation efficiency of the structure ‘BM’ as a function of vapor superficial velocity.
Both overall separation efficiency and structure separation efficiency are measured. The definition and
difference between these two separation efficiencies are discussed in 2.1.
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The separation efficiency drops as the vapor superficial velocity increases. As mentioned previously, the
flow parameters of refrigerant and oil are coupled. Higher vapor superficial velocity also brings higher oil
fraction and smaller oil droplets. Therefore, the trend of the separation efficiency can be explained in three
aspects. First, refrigerant vapor with higher vapor velocity may blow the captured oil off the wire. Some oil
ligaments break into smaller droplets due to the kinetic energy introduced by the refrigerant vapor. Second,
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higher oil volume fraction before the separator means higher loads for separation. If the separator is saturated,
the separation efficiency may decrease. Third, smaller oil droplets tend to follow the streamline of the vapor and
are generally more difficult to capture.
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Fig. 7: The effect of the incoming flow condition on the separation structure of the benchmark coalescing
structure

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1.1.4 Pressure drop

Besides extra volume and cost of components to the system, the pressure drop is the main operation cost
introduced by an oil separator. As shown in Fig. 8, the pressure drop of different wire mesh pads is plotted as
the function of vapor superficial velocity. The overall pressure drop is the including both the pressure drop
introduced by the inlet and outlet of the separation chamber and the pressure drop by the coalescing structure.
The base pressure drop is the pressure drop measured when the separation chamber is empty. Here we assume
the pressure drop is only contributed by the chamber inlet/outlet and the structure. So, the structural pressure
drop is calculated by reducing the base pressure drop from the overall pressure drop.
When comparing the same separator at different flow conditions, the pressure drop increases as the velocity
of the vapor phase increases. By linking separation efficiency with pressure drop, it can be concluded that a
separator with higher separation efficiency usually cost more pressure drop. This indicates a trade-off between
separation efficiency and pressure drop for the design of oil separators.

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Fig. 8: The effect of the inlet flow condition on the pressure drop of the benchmark coalescing structure
1.10 Geometric specifications
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The geometric specification of the coalescing oil separators needs to be clearly defined before we can
compare the performance of different separation structures. In this study, three independent geometric
parameters are chosen to evaluate the effect of geometry on the performance of the coalescers: wire diameter
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(dw), pad thickness (H) and solid fraction (s). Fig. 9 shows the key geometric parameters of a wire-mesh
coalescer that are studied in this study.
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Fig. 9: Key geometric parameters of a wire-mesh coalescer

Wire diameter is the diameter of the wire in the wire mesh pad. For a wire mesh pad, wire diameter also
represents the minimum characteristic length of the separation structure. In the wire-scale view of Fig. 9, ‘dp’ is
the mean size of the pore and ‘d’ is the diameter of the oil droplet.
The pad thickness is the dimension along the vapor flow direction of the apparent volume occupied by the
wire mesh pad. The thickness of pad decides the number of effective layers, which further affects the separation
efficiency and pressure drop.
Solid fraction is a parameter to evaluate how dense a wire mesh pad is. As shown in equation (5), it is
defined by the ratio between the volume of solid wire and the total volume it occupies. The total occupied
volume is given by the product of the cross-sectional area facing the flow (A) and the thickness along the flow
direction (H). For a coalescing oil separator, a typical solid fraction value is 1 to 5%. In the experiments, the

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total volume of the solid wire (Vw) can be calculated by the weight of the wire and the density of the material
(stainless steel 304 in this study).

(5)

Some literature uses porosity or void fraction (ε) as a measure of the fraction of the void spaces over the
total volume. Porosity equals one minus the solid fraction.
(6)
Seven different wire mesh geometry are tested in this study. The benchmark (BM) geometry is chosen as a
reference for other geometries. Three pairs of wire mesh pads are tested to evaluate the effect of different
geometric parameters. For example, “d-” represents a wire mesh pad with a smaller wire diameter but the same
solid fraction and the same thickness. “s+” represents a wire mesh pad with a larger solid fraction but the same
wire diameter and the same thickness. All the other geometries have a similar nomenclature. These geometries

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are tested in the same set of test conditions to study the effect of different geometric specification independently.
The details of these wire mesh pads are listed in Table 2.

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Table 2: Specification of wire mesh pad used in the tests
Structure Wire diameter Solid fraction Thickness

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name dw (mm) s (%) H (mm)
BM 0.178 2.81% 50
d- 0.152 2.81% 50
d+ 0.279 2.81% 50
s-
s+
H-
0.178
0.178
0.178
2.43%
3.64%
2.81%
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50
50
25
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H+ 0.178 2.81% 100
1.11 Effect of separator geometry
Incoming oil flow condition has a significant impact on the performance of a coalescing oil separator.
However, the upstream flow condition is determined by the compressor working condition, and we can only
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change the geometry design of the oil separator to fit this condition. Fig. 10 is a “design map” where the
separation efficiency and pressure drop of seven coalescing separators are plotted. These coalescing separators
with different geometric specifications (listed in Table 2) are tested under low or high vapor velocity conditions.
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Here, vapor superficial velocity equals to 0.2 m·s-1 in the low vapor velocity condition while vapor superficial
velocity equals to 0.4 m·s-1 in the high vapor velocity condition. In the map, the upper left corner the best
design, where separation efficiency is high, and pressure drop is low. The lower right corner is the opposite.
The effect of the wire diameter can be concluded by comparing the separation efficiency and pressure drop
of ‘BM’, ‘d-’ and d+’. When the solid fraction keeps the same, reducing the wire diameter means increasing the
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surface area and increasing the probability that droplets can be captured. At high vapor flow conditions, the
separation efficiency is reduced by 12% when the wire diameter is increased from 0.15 um to 0.18 at the high
vapor velocity condition.
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The effect of the solid fraction can be concluded by comparing structure ‘BM’, ‘s-’ and s+’. The solid
fraction is an approximate estimation of how ‘dense’ a coalescing media is. It is intuitive that the separating
structure with higher solid fraction has higher separation efficiency and higher pressure drop. From the
experimental data, it can be concluded that increasing the solid fraction from 2.4% to 2.8% can add to 10%
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separation efficiency but increasing the solid fraction from 2.8% to 3.6% can only add to 3% separation
efficiency at the high vapor velocity condition (u vs = 0.4 m·s-1). This indicates that the solid fraction may reach a
saturated stage of about 3%.
The effect of the thickness can be concluded by comparing structure ‘BM’, ‘H-’ and ‘H+’. Additional
thickness to the coalescer means more layers available to capture the droplets along the flow direction. The
experimental results show the separation efficiency increases by about 10% by doubling the thickness along the
flow direction. As a result, the pressure drop increases accordingly as the pad gets thicker.
Overall, it can be concluded that reducing wire diameter, adding solid fraction, and adding coalescer
thickness can increase the separation efficiency but also introduces an extra pressure drop.
When the vapor superficial velocity gets higher, the overall performance of the coalescer gets worse. This
trend is consistent with the effect of flow condition (discussed in 3.2) is shown graphically in Fig. 10 as the data
points moving from the upper left towards the lower right.

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Fig. 10: Evaluation of different coalescer geometries under low or high vapor velocity conditions
Many more geometry designs need to be evaluated if the designer wants to get the optimized design. It is

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more efficient to do such design based on an analytical model validated by experimental results. Before building
the analytical model, it is necessary to analyze the complicated geometry of coalescing oil separator from the
basic simplified structures.

4. Analysis of basic structures

1.12 Single wire US
The analysis of a coalescing oil separator starts from oil mist captured by a single wire. When the oil mist
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passes around a single wire, some oil droplets are captured by the wire and form oil beads from the film of the
adhered droplets. The size of oil bead grows as more and more oil droplets deposit on it and the film above. The
oil bead starts to slide down along the wire due to gravity when it gets to a specific size. That size is the function
of the thermophysical properties, including oil viscosity and surface tension. The qualitative illustration of the
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force balance of oil droplets captured and drained along the wire is shown in Fig. 11. The oil bead is attached to
the wire under the action of gravity (FG), drag force (FD), surface tension(FS), and viscous force(FV).
When the vapor velocity is high enough, the drag force overcomes the adhesion and re-entrainment takes
place (blow-off). As shown in Fig. 11, an oil droplet is first captured by the vertical wire when it hits the wire.
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Then, the oil droplet is detached from the wire due to the drag force and the inertia. The process of the
entrainment after the deposition of the droplets is called re-entrainment. Fig. 11 also shows an oil bead that stays
attached to the wire while moving downward along the wire. When the oil bead reaches the bottom of the
structure, it is separated and will be guided back to the compressor.
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Side view
dw
Top view
Fv
Fs Vd
FD
Flow
direction

FG Drainage
α direction

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Fig. 11: Visualization of the oil droplet captured by a vertical wire with a diameter of 0.152 mm.
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Gilet et al. (2010) provided an analytical model to calculate the sliding speed of droplets on vertical fibers.
The force balance between the gravity, surface tension, and viscous force is considered based on the shape of
the liquid droplet. Their model suggests that thinner wire introduces a larger contact angle and faster sliding
velocity of the droplet. This conclusion also agrees with our experimental result that coalescer with smaller wire
diameter has higher separation efficiency.
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Mullins et al. (2004a) investigated the effect of wire orientation on the drainage of captured liquid on a wire.
An optimum angle is suggested for the drainage of the liquid along the wire. The optimum angle is determined
by the ratio between the drag force and gravity. However, it is not very practical to align all the wire in a
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particular orientation because it increases the manufacturing cost. The most common way to implement the
coalescing separation in compressor application is knitting the thin wire to make wire-mesh layers or pads.
1.13 Wire-mesh layer
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Compared to a vertical wire, a layer of wire mesh perpendicular to the flow direction is more likely to catch
the oil droplet by coalescing. Video frames in Fig. 12 show the oil mist flowing through a wire-mesh layer in the
separation chamber. The normal direction of the wire-mesh layer in the video is parallel with the general flow
direction. Some of the oil droplets can pass through the interspace between the wires while others are captured
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by the wires. Captured oil droplets temporarily stay on the wire mesh and form an oil film. The shear force
introduced by the vapor breaks the oil film, and big oil droplets and ligaments are formed. This is the process of
coalescence. Bigger droplets tend to deviate from the vapor flow streamline and fall to the bottom of the
chamber. However, at high vapor velocity conditions, the captured oil may break up into small droplets again
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because of high shear force. This re-entrainment will reduce the separation efficiency. Therefore, the oil
separator design should fit the need of high-vapor velocity conditions at the compressor discharge, because
these conditions are typically the “worst” condition to achieve high separation efficiency.

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Fig. 12: Oil mist passing a layer of wire mesh (side view)

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1.14 Wire-mesh pad
In practical application, coalescing separator appears as a pad consisting of multiple layers of wire mesh or a
wire-mesh roll. Fig. 13 shows the video frames captured before, inside, and after the coalescer under realistic
compressor discharge oil flow conditions. Many of the oil droplets are captured by the wire or the oil film

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retaining on the wire. Some smaller oil droplets follow the vapor flow to pass through the wire jungle and
escape the separator. Overall, by comparing the images, it can be concluded that oil mist after the separator is
sparser than that before the separator. The image of oil mist inside separator is also captured by adjusting the
exposure time of the camera. Extra front light is added to observe the inner structure of the wire mesh. The over-
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exposure and front light also make the droplets look brighter in contrast with the darker background. The video
shows that oil droplet hit the wire and merge with the retained oil. When the vapor velocity is high, re-
entrainment may happen, which means that captured oil is blown off the wire and broken into smaller droplets
again.
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Fig. 13: Sample frames of the oil mist going through the wire mesh pad
5. Model of coalescing separators
1.15 Simplification of the geometry
The first step in building an analytical model for coalescing oil separator is the simplification of the internal
geometry of the coalescer. The internal geometry of the wire mesh pad is complicated because of the random
direction and interlock between the wires. Several important geometric parameters need to be defined to
simplify internal geometry to be used in the model.
The total surface area (Si) of wire is calculated by the total volume of wire (Vw) and the wire diameter (dw).
The total volume of wire (Vw) can be calculated by the weight of the dry wire mesh and the density of the wire
material (typically stainless steel)

(7)

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The irregular interlock of the wire mesh introduces many pores in different shapes and sizes. It is assumed
that the original pores are equivalent to a number of circular pores in the same layer. The size of these circular
pores is described by the mean diameter (dp). The number of pores in each layer (np) is estimated by the total
void area divided by the area of each pore. Here A is the cross-sectional area defined in Fig. 9 and s is the solid
fraction.

(8)

In this way, the total internal surface area of the simplified geometry can be calculated by:
(9)
Comparing the equation (7) with (9), substituting the Vw and np by (5) and (8) respectively, the mean pore
size can be determined as:

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(10)

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In the probability-based multilayer model, we assume that each layer has an effective thickness. The
effective thickness is defined as the sum of mean pore diameter and the wire diameter. Therefore, the number of
layers (nl) can be defined as

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(11)

With the definition of the mean pore size and number of layers, it is possible to divide the volume of
coalescers into multiple sections.
1.16 Separation model
1.1.5 Oil mass balance
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Regardless of a single wire, a wire-mesh layer or a block of coalescing media, the mass balance of oil should
hold at the steady state for any separation structures. The qualitative observation has shown the interaction
between the oil droplets and the coalescing separators. As shown in Fig. 13, incoming oil droplets have two
paths: they will either pass through the gap between wires or be captured by the structure. The captured oil stays
on the wire temporarily and has two paths afterward: they will either be drained successfully due to gravity or be
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entrained by the refrigerant vapor. The sum of the oil mass flow rates passing through the separator and the oil
re-entrained by the vapor equal to the total amount of oil flowing out of the separator. Therefore, we can use the
equations (12) - (14) to describe the mass balance occurring on the single layer wire mesh. These mass balance
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equations should hold for any coalescing oil separators.

(
ṁin = ṁcapture + ṁpass 12)
(
ṁcapture = ṁdrain + ṁentrain 13)
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(
ṁpass + ṁentrain = ṁout 14)
In application, the single layer wire mesh is not sufficient to achieve a good separation efficiency. Wire
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mesh pad is typically used as a coalescing oil separator for compressor applications. A wire mesh pad is made
by rolling a long sheet of wire mesh and fitted into a particular volume of the compressor or the pressure vessel.
So, it is necessary to expand the model of a single layer to the whole volume. A probability-based multilayer
model is proposed based on the simplification of the geometry. For each equivalent layer, the mass balance
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should hold.

Fig. 14. Mass flow balance of oil mist through multilayers of wire mesh

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In Fig. 14, subscript "c" stands for captured oil, subscript "p" stands for oil droplets passing through between
wires; subscript "e" represents oil that is re-entrained by the vapor; subscript “r” stands for oil retaining on the
wire temporarily; subscript “a” represents the oil moving along the wire; and subscript “d” stands for oil
drainage. The number in the subscript represents the number of layers.
As shown in Fig. 14, the model divides the wire mesh pad into several layers along the flow direction. The
meaning of each parameter with subscripts can be found in the section of ‘Abbreviations and Variables’. The
incoming oil mass flow of a certain layer may follow three potential paths: pass through this layer, be captured
and then drained to the bottom of the separator or be captured and then re-entrained to the next layer. The
outgoing oil mass flow becomes the incoming oil mass flow of the next layer. By putting the multiple layers
together, the model of the entire volume is built. The drainage of each layer adds up to the total oil drainage.
For the entire volume, there is only one incoming oil mass flow, one outgoing oil mass flow, and multiple oil
drainage.
1.1.6 Capture of oil droplets

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One of the critical parameters in the probability-based multilayer model is the capture ratio. Capture ratio
(rc) is defined as the mass flow rate of oil droplets captured by the wire mesh divided by the mass flow rate of

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oil droplet passing through the wire mesh.
̇
(15)

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̇
A straightforward method to estimate the capture ratio is calculating the ratio of the porous area. When an
oil droplet passes a layer of wire mesh, it may be captured or pass the wire mesh through the pores. Based on the
geometric parameters derived previously, the capture ratio is estimated by equation (16), where d is the diameter
of the droplet.

(
( )
)
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1.1.7 Re-entrainment
Another important parameter in the model that decides the distribution of the flow path is the re-entrainment
ratio (re). Re-entrainment ratio is defined as the mass flow rate of oil droplets that are re-entrained with vapor
flow divided by that has been collected.
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̇
(17)
̇
Weber number is commonly used to estimate the entrainment ratio. Weber number is a nondimensional
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number defined as the ratio between the inertial force and the surface tension, is a widely-accepted parameter to
estimate the possibility of the re-entrainment.

(18)
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Here ρv is the density of the vapor phase; uvs is the vapor phase velocity; l is the characteristic length (wire
diameter in this study); σ is the surface tension of the liquid.
Due to the complexity of the actual interaction between oil droplets and wire mesh, it is difficult to make an
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accurate calculation of the entrainment ratio. Instead, a semi-empirical equation is used, as shown in equation
(16). The equation ensured the result is physically reasonable under asymptotic approach, which means the ratio
re will stay in the range of 0 to 1 with an extreme parameter input. A critical Weber number (We*) is set as the
entrainment limit, above which the entrainment is much more likely to happen. ke is introduced as a sensitivity
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factor in this equation, which can be determined by curve fitting.

[ ( ) ] (19)

By determining the ratio at each “crossroads” of the flow paths, we can calculate the mass flow through each
layer based on the incoming oil mist condition and the geometry of the separator. Oil mist condition at the outlet
of the separator is then calculated by iterating the calculation layer by layer. The main advantage of the multi-
path multi-layer model is that the model breaks down the wire mesh pad and estimate the mass flow by
dimensionless parameter and fundament mass balance. In this way, the generality of this new model is better
than that of empirical correlation by curve fitting.
1.17 Pressure drop model

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Besides the separation efficiency, the pressure drop is another parameter that affects the design of oil
separators. Several models have been proposed to predict the pressure drop across the wire mesh pad based on
the geometry together with the flow conditions.
One of the most well-cited equations governing flow through permeable media was developed by Ergun
(1952). Ergun’s correlation was initially developed to characterize the pressure drop through the packed column,
so there is still some difference with the wire mesh pad.
Setekleiv (2012) proposed an empirical correlation for wire mesh oil separator in the vertical flow direction
based on Ergun’s model. Minor corrections were made to fit the experimental data better. The primary geometry
parameters of a wire mesh pad (wire diameter, solid fraction, and pad thickness) are taken into consideration in
this model. However, Setekleiv’s correlation still contains a lot of coefficients that need curve fitting, which
limit the generality of the correlation.
Burkholz (1990) proposed another pressure drop model based on the Euler number. In fluid mechanics, the
Euler number is defined as the ratio between pressure forces and inertial forces.

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(20)

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Burkholz built a correlation between the Euler number and the overall relative flow area and the drag
coefficient based on their experimental measurements. One of the main drawbacks of his model is that the effect
of pad thickness is missing. In this study, we modify some details of Burkholz’s model to develop a semi-

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empirical pressure correlation.
The overall relative flow area (Aor) is defined as the total surface area divided by the cross-sectional area. s is
the solid fraction of the coalescer (defined in 3.1), H is the thickness of coalescer, and dw is the wire diameter.

US (21)

The drag coefficient is got from a curve fitting of the classic drag coefficient-Reynolds number correlation
(Cheng, 2013).
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[ ( )]
(22)
[ ( ( ) ) ] (1<Re< 40000)
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Here Reynolds number is defined using the wire diameter of the coalescer.

(23)
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With the calculation of Aor and Cd, the Euler number can be calculated by an empirical correlation, as shown
in equation (24). The coefficient in the equation is determined by fitting the experimental data in this study.
(24)
Equation (20) to (24) describe a semi-empirical model with only two parameters to be fitted. It is more
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practical to apply this pressure drop correlation in the design of coalescing oil separators.
1.18 Model implementation and validation
With the details discussed above, we can implement the model, as shown in Fig. 15. Oil mist videos are
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taken at both inlet and outlet of the coalescer. Geometric specification and measured flow parameters (like mass
flow rate, compressor discharge temperature, and compressor discharge pressure) are also raw data taken from
the experimental measurement. The oil droplet size distribution at the inlet, together with simplified geometry
and flow parameters are then used as the input of the separation model. The output of the model includes oil
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droplet distribution at the outlet, separation efficiency, and pressure drop, which will be compared with
experimental measurements to validate the model. Once the coefficients that need fitting are determined, the
model can predict the separation efficiency, pressure drop, and oil mist characteristics after the separating
structure.

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Fig. 15: Flow chart of the implementation and validation of the model of coalescing oil separator

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Experimental data of seven different coalescers (listed in Table 2) under different flow conditions are used to
validate the separation model and the pressure drop correlation. As shown in Fig. 16, the model successfully
predicts the separation efficiency of different geometries under different incoming oil mist conditions. Most of

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the error between the model results and experimental results is controlled within 20%. Fig. 17 plots the
validation of the pressure drop correlation by the experimental results. It can be concluded that our pressure
drop correlation makes a good prediction despite very few outliers. Separation efficiency and pressure drop are
the macroscale parameters that engineers care more about. Besides, oil mist condition after the coalescing

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separator is also modeled. Fig. 18 plots the validation of the droplet volumetric mean diameter after the
coalescing separators. Each data point compares the oil mist after the separator estimated by the model with the
oil mist captured by the video. It can be concluded that the multilayer model can make a good prediction of the
separation efficiency, pressure drop, and oil mist characteristics based on the simplified geometry and upstream
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flow conditions.
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Fig. 16. Comparison of the separation efficiency by experiments and that by the model of the coalescing oil
separators at different flow conditions
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Fig. 17. Comparison of the pressure drop by experiments and that by the model of the coalescing oil separators

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at different flow conditions

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Fig. 18. Comparison of the after-separator droplet volumetric mean diameter by experiments and that by the
model of the coalescing oil separators at different flow conditions
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1.19 Model extrapolation

With the validated model, some extrapolations can be made to create a design map for coalescing type of oil
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separators. For a specific geometry of the separation structures, we can calculate the separation efficiency as a
function of vapor superficial velocity and oil droplet diameter. Fig. 19 shows one of the examples how the
model can be extrapolated and applied in the design of practical oil separators. It is intuitive that the separator
favors large oil droplets and slow vapor velocity. So, the highest separation efficiency appears in the lower right
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corner of the contour. On the other hand, the upstream oil flow condition of the compressor can be determined
by our visualization techniques under different conditions. The oil mist has a certain size distribution, and the
refrigerant vapor flows in a certain range of velocity, which is shown as a circle on top of the separation
efficiency contour. This circle determines the working condition of the oil separator, and the overall separation
efficiency can be calculated correspondingly. If the geometry of the coalescing separator changes, the design
map will also change. In this way, we can utilize our model to provide design guidelines for coalescing oil
separators.

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Fig. 19. An operation map to predict the separation efficiency based on the model of coalescing oil separators

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6. Summary and Conclusions
Oil separator design is essential for compressor reliability and heat transfer performance of air conditioning
and refrigeration system. As one of the basic mechanisms of mist elimination, the coalescing separator is widely
used to reduce the oil circulation ratio.
In this study, experimental measurement and flow visualization are used to analyze the oil mist flowing

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through coalescing oil separators under realistic compressor discharge conditions. Flow visualization provides
flow details of the oil mist entering and leaving the oil separator, including droplet size distribution and oil
volume fraction. Experiments confirm that separation efficiency decreases when vapor velocity increases
(shown in Fig. 7). This trend can be explained by the fine atomization, high oil flow load, and elevated
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probability of re-entrainment under higher vapor velocity. Pressure drop introduced by the separation structure
increases as the vapor velocity increases (shown in Fig. 8).
For different oil separator geometries under the same flow conditions, denser separation structure provides
better separation efficiency at the cost of more significant pressure drop, as shown in Fig. 10. Without changing
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volume, few designs can achieve high separation efficiency and low pressure drop at the same time. The
analysis of basic structures of coalescing oil separators provides a detailed view of how coalescing separators
work and the potential improvement. Oil mist through a single wire, a single layer of wire mesh, and a practical
coalescing separator are studied and discussed through visualization. The capture and re-entrainment of the oil
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droplets are analyzed. Mass balance of oil mist entering and leaving the coalescer always hold at the steady
state, which lays the ground for a separation model.
A probability-based multi-layer model is developed to predict the separation efficiency of a coalescing
separator. The model simplifies the complicated internal geometry of the coalescing media to make sure it is
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easy to implement. It considers the crucial geometric parameter and incoming oil mist characteristics. The
model is validated by the separation efficiency, pressure drop, and droplet volumetric mean diameter after the
separator from the experimental measurements, as shown in Fig. 16, Fig. 17, and Fig. 18, respectively. The
model provides more details than traditional curve fitting to link the separator performance with its geometry or
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upstream flow condition. Though some parameters are empirical, this analytical model based on first principles
shows very good feasibility. It has great potential to be generalized for coalescing oil separator design of
different compressors.
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Acknowledgment
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the member companies of the Industrial Advisory
Board of the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The
authors would also like to acknowledge the significant contribution made by Dr. Scott Wujek, Dr. Augusto
Zimmermann in their contributions while they were Ph.D. students, and Mr. Junqi Ma.

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Abbreviations and variables

Variables
d Droplet diameter
g Gravitational acceleration
k sensitivity factor
l characteristic geometry length
ṁ mass flow rate
OCR oil circulation rate
We Weber number
Η separation efficiency
σ surface tension
ρ density

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r Ratio between mass flux
ω

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mass fraction of refrigerant in the refrigerant-oil
mixture
Subscript

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as after separator
bs before separator
c capture
e entrain
d
in
l
p
drain
inlet of the coalescer
liquid
pass
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r retain
out outlet of the coalescer
v vapor
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