Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Study of inorganic fouling deposition in a hydrocyclone: comparison between numerical simulation and experimental results.
Submission Author:
Andrei Hünemeyer Dullius , RJ , Brazil
Co-Authors:
Andrei Hünemeyer Dullius, Juliana Loureiro, Juliana Ferreira Gonçalves, Andressa Amorim Daás, Mariana Dominguez, Fabricio Silva
Presenter: Andrei Hünemeyer Dullius
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-1167
Abstract
Calcium carbonate fouling formation is a great challenge faced by the oil and gas industry in Brazil, occurring throughout the production process. The extreme conditions of production, the high content of salinity and CO2 in the formation water, along with the types of rock reservoir found in the pre-salt layer, highly favour the occurrence of this phenomenon. Notably, de-oiling hydrocyclones, employed in the treatment of wastewater during the later stages of production, have their efficiency highly compromised due to fouling formation, possibly leading to increased pressure drop and complete blockage. Accurate prediction of the fouling phenomenon in hydrocyclones requires a multitude of approaches, given the complexity of the flow within the equipment and the difficulty in describing the fouling process itself. The flow inside the equipment with its characteristic opposing inner and outer vortexes may direct the fouling particles formed in the bulk flow towards the wall, thus favouring the phenomenon of particle adhesion. The comparison between experimental results and numerical simulations is explored in this work, with the goal of providing a practical description of the phenomenon of scaling in hydrocyclones. In this study, we adopt the well-established Ning and Thornton model for adhesive particles in the numerical simulation of wall-deposit formation in a hydrocyclone, in order to investigate the dynamics of scaling in a complex turbulent flow. The velocity field is provided by a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) computation calculated in OpenFoam. The geometry of the model, the input for pressure and velocity in the simulations, as well as the number and size distribution of particles are all taken from the experiments carried out in the laboratory with a hydrocyclone prototype under conditions very similar to real field applications. The experiments consist of inducing calcium carbonate scaling formation through the mixture of sodium bicarbonate and calcium chloride solutions in a pipe circuit, leading to an encapsulated hydrocyclone. The results obtained by the simulations provide further understanding of the results found in the experiments, giving a clearer picture of the scaling process in the hydrocyclone. The results show a higher concentration of particles in the underflow, where the denser phase exits the equipment.
Keywords
Calcium carbonate, fouling, Hydrocyclone, Numerical simulation
