Refrigerant distributor for falling film evaporator

A heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system comprising:

• a condenser flowing a flow of refrigerant therethrough;
• a falling film evaporator in flow communication with the condenser including:
• an evaporator vessel;
• a plurality of evaporator tubes disposed in the evaporator vessel through which a volume of thermal energy transfer medium is flowed;
• a distributor disposed in the evaporator vessel above the plurality of evaporator tubes to distribute a flow of liquid refrigerant over the plurality of evaporator tubes;
• a suction port extending through the evaporator vessel to remove vapor refrigerant from the evaporator vessel;
• and
• a vapor-liquid separator disposed in the evaporator vessel to separate the vapor refrigerant from a vapor and liquid refrigerant mixture, the vapor-liquid separator configured such that the vapor-liquid separator has a first height at the suction port and a second height greater than the first height at a longitudinal location of than at the suction port.