The most common approach to the design of oil / water separators is to configure parallel corrugated plates that cause the oil droplets to increase in size, thereby speeding the gravity separation process. Hydro Quip uses a unique Unipack cross-fluted design with an internal structure of interconnecting channels having many crossing points between adjacent plates. This produces enhanced efficiencies in significantly smaller units. Hydro Quip's Unipack construction requires a unit with only 5,000 gallon capacity to produce the same yield of a traditional separator unit with 15,000 gallon capacity at a flow rate of 500 gallons per minute.
Droplets are intercepted by the corrugated plates as the oil / water mixture flows through the separator.
New droplets coalesce with retained droplets, making larger droplets.
Enlarged droplets are released and rise to the surface to be decanted into a storage tank. Since Stokes' Law calculations are based on a flow of zero velocity through the Unipack plates, a Reynold's number of less than 500 will ensure optimum separation in a Hydro Quip Oil / Water Separator.