Integrated system for online detection and automatic removal of water and particulate contaminants from turbine oil

A vacuum dehydrator for removing water from lube oil, the vacuum dehydrator comprising:

• a vacuum chamber comprising a contaminated lube oil contact zone intermediate a decontaminated oil collection zone and a disengagement zone;
• a lube oil inlet for introducing a water contaminated lube oil into the contact zone of the vacuum chamber;
• a hot air inlet for introducing a heated air stream into the contact zone of the vacuum chamber;
• a decontaminated oil outlet fluidly connected to the decontaminated oil collection zone;
• and
• a wet air outlet fluidly connected to the disengagement zone;
• wherein the lube oil inlet and the hot air inlet are configured to introduce and contact the water contaminated lube oil and the hot air in the contact zone, producing a dehydrated oil received into the decontaminated oil collection zone and a wet air stream containing entrained oil droplets received into the disengagement zone;
• wherein the lube oil inlet comprises one or more spiral nozzles configured to disperse a plurality of contaminated lube oil droplets into a contaminated oil contact zone;
• wherein the disengagement zone comprises a tortuous divergent flow path traversing from a disengagement zone inlet to the wet air outlet;
• wherein the tortuous divergent flow path comprises two or more inclined flow paths, each including a lower inclined plate and an upper inclined plate, the upper inclined plate being disposed at a greater angle from horizontal than the lower inclined plate.