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ENCIT 2022
19th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF WATER-OIL-AIR FLOW IN A HORIZONTAL GRAVITATIONAL SEPARATOR
Submission Author:
Daniel Rodrigues Weller , PR , Brazil
Co-Authors:
Daniel Rodrigues Weller, PAULO HENRIQUE DIAS DOS SANTOS, Rigoberto Morales, Henrique Stel, Tiago Henrique Leitão Dalcuche, Marco Germano Conte, Rafael Fabricio Alves
Presenter: Tiago Henrique Leitão Dalcuche
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2022.CIT22-0189
Abstract
Gravitational separators are large equipment, which often become a critical factor for their installation in the small spaces of oil production platforms. The general objective of the present work is to verify efficiency gains with the injection of bubbles in a gravitational separator through a numerical analysis aiming to improve the quality of the produced water. The simulations were performed using the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach and the SST turbulence model available in ANSYS CFX R1 2021. The inlet water flow ranged from 200 to 450 ml/s and the oil flow was 25 ml/s forming a total of 4 numerical cases. Inlet droplet diameter distributions were implemented using the Discrete Diameter Distribution. The validation of this study was based on the estimation of the cut-off diameter of the oil droplets at the water outlet, where the maximum error was 18.12% in relation to the experimental data. The injection of bubbles in the gravitational separator reduced by up to 22% the cut-off diameter of the oil droplets at the water outlet. It was then concluded that bubble injection can be beneficial for phase separation, especially at higher flow rates.
Keywords
gravitational separator, Numerical analysis, Eulerian-Lagrangian, bubble injection
