Experimental Study and CFD Modeling of Two-phase Well-Head Separator

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Petroleum Engineering at Amir Kabir University of Technology, School of Petroleum Engineering, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The performance of two-phase separator was investigated in this paper. Two-phase separator was designed and manufactured using empirical correlations. The simplifying assumptions were used in these empirical correlations which make the results of these empirical correlations less valuable. The effect of inlet diverter was neglected in designing methods and the diameter of the liquid droplets assumed to be constant and predetermined. In these designing methods, it was assumed that the liquid droplets were falling from the top of the two-phase separator vessel but in reality, the inlet diverter leads to separate the majority of liquid droplets because of momentum changing. Also, the fundamentals of the turbulent multi-phase flow were not considered in these designing methods. The two-phase flow loop was designed and manufactured. Air and water flows were mixed together at mixing section that was a 45° Tee and two-phase flow was formed. The two-phase flow had been considered as developed two-phase flow after passing 160*D distance along the pipe length which D is the pipe diameter. Water and air flow rates were in ranges of 0-2.5m3/h and 0-100m3/h, respectively. The liquid droplets trapper with 20-micron filter was mounted at gas outlet section of the separator to measure the volume fraction of the liquid phase in outlet gas flow and photography of liquid droplets in order to determine the diameter of the liquid droplets in outlet gas flow. The CFD results were validated using experimental results and compared together in order to obtain the best multiphase flow model, turbulent flow model and under relaxation factors. Finally, the dimensionless groups were developed in order to model and investigate the separator performance. One of the most important achievements of this paper was providing the suitable platform to design well head two-phase separators based on the production conditions.
 

Keywords

References

[1]. Wilkinson D, Waldie B, Nor M M,  Lee H Y (2000) Baffle plate configurations to enhance separation in horizontal primary separators, Chemical Engineering Journal, 77, 3: 221-226.##
[2]. Lee J M, Khan R I,  Phelps D W (2010) Debottlenecking and computational-fluid-dynamics studies of high-and low-pressure production separators, SPE Projects, Facilities and Construction, 4, 04: 124-131. ##
[3]. Hansen E W (2001) Phenomenological modelling and simulation of fluid flow and separation behavior in offshore gravity separators, Asme-Publications-Pvp 431: 23-30. ##
[4]. Pourahmadi Laleh A, Pourahmadi Laleh A, Svrcek W Y, Monnery W D (2011) Computational fluid dynamics simulation of pilot‐plant‐scale two‐phase separators, Chemical Engineering and Technology, 34, 2: 296-306. ##
[5]. Ghaffarkhah A, Ghaffarkhah A, Shahrabi M A, Moraveji M K, Eslami H (2017) Application of CFD for designing conventional three phase oilfield separator, Egyptian Journal of Petroleum, 26, 2: 413-420. ##
[6]. Acharya T, Casimiro L (2020) Evaluation of flow characteristics in an onshore horizontal separator using computational fluid dynamics, Journal of Ocean Engineering and Science, 5, 3: 261-268. ##
[7]. Yayla S, Yayla S E D A T, Kamal K, Bayraktar S (2019) Numerical analysis of a two-phase flow (oil and gas) in a horizontal separator used in petroleum projects, Journal of Applied Fluid Mechanics, 12, 4: 1037-1045. ##
[8]. Ahmed T, Ahmed T, Russell P A, Hamad F,  Gooneratne S (2019) Experimental analysis and computational-fluid-dynamics modeling of pilot-scale three-phase separators, SPE Production and Operations, 34, 04: 805-819. ##
[9]. Frank M, Frank M, Kamenicky R, Drikakis D, Thomas L, Ledin H, Wood T (2019) Multiphase flow effects in a horizontal oil and gas separator, Energies, 12, 11: 2116. ##
[10]. Ghaffarkhah A, Dijvejin Z A, Shahrabi M A, Moraveji M K, Mostofi M (2019) Coupling of CFD and semiempirical methods for designing three-phase condensate separator: case study and experimental validation, Journal of Petroleum Exploration And Production Technology, 9, 1: 353-382. ##
[11]. Oshinowo L, Vilagines R (2019) Verification of a CFD-population balance model for crude oil separation efficiency in a three-phase separator–effect of emulsion rheology and droplet size distribution, SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference, Society of Petroleum Engineers. ##
[12]. Fadaei M, Ameli F, Hashemabadi S H (2019) Experimental study and CFD simulation of two-phase flow measurement using orifice flow meter, 29: 85-96. ##
[13]. Ferziger J H, Perić M, Street R L (2002) Computational methods for fluid dynamics, 3, Berlin Springer. ##
[14]. Yeoh G H, Tu J (2019) Computational techniques for multiphase flows, Butterworth-Heinemann.‏ ##
[15]. Manual F (2005) Manual and user guide of fluent software, Fluent Inc 597.‏ ##
[16]. Brackbill J U, Kothe D B, Zemach C (1992) A continuum method for modeling surface tension, Journal of Computational Physics, 100, 2: 335-354. ##‏
Journal of Petroleum Research
Volume 31, 1400-1 - Serial Number 116
May and June 2021
Pages 51-68

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics