Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Study of axial separators through the computational fluid dynamics technique
Submission Author:
Felipe Bendinelli Murça , ES
Co-Authors:
Felipe Bendinelli Murça, Fabio de Assis Ressel Pereira, Michel de Oliveira dos Santos, Bruno Loureiro
Presenter: Michel de Oliveira dos Santos
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-1796
Abstract
In the oil industry, the water-oil separation at offshore environments is a critical step during primary processing, especially in scenarios where produced water can represent up to 90% of the volume to be processed. The option for gravitational separation equipment has a high residence time and demand space, not being the ideal option for offshore platforms. On the other hand, oil separators using the centrifugal methods have been widely used due to their high production capacity, short residence time, high separation efficiency and low maintenance cost. Among them, the axial separator can be highlighted, a static device that promotes the swirling flow, allowing the separation and extraction of each phase in different collectors. This equipment has two main components, the swirl generator and the collection tube. In this study, the flow field inside an axial separator was investigated using the computational fluid dynamics technique. The axial separator body was adjusted to represent three different geometries, with variations in the cross-sectional area, consequently changing other geometric parameters such as the nose and tail angles. Another investigated aspect was the throughput with a variation in three levels. The system was modeled for adiabatic conditions, transient regime, incompressible, single-phase and turbulent flow. The computational grid was generated with polyhedral and prismatic elements, the latter to represent the boundary layer. This strategy proved to be suitable for the geometry’s complexity, providing good quality parameters for a range of 3 million elements. Based on the literature, the RSM model was chosen to describe turbulence in terms of Reynolds stresses, allowing the capture of complex details of the velocity and stress field, even in regions of swirling flow. Interpreting the velocity contours and the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate, was possible to develop a better understanding of fluid dynamics in aspects relevant to the operation of axial separators. From this study it was possible to observe an intense region of recirculation in the core of the flow, intensified for higher Euler numbers. Complementarily, the analysis of the kinetic energy dissipation rate also allowed optimizing the collector ducts position, demonstrating the potential of the methodology to improve the separation process.
Keywords
CFD, Numerical simulation, Axial Hydrociclone
