CFD simulation of homogenization in large-scale crude oil storage tanks

Abstract

The homogenization time of two layers of crude oils obtained from different reservoirs in 19 000 m 3 floating roof storage tank is predicted using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The tank equipped with a side-entry 0.65 m marine-type mixer. An in-house CFD code using Multiple Frame of Reference (MFR) and the renormalization group version (RNG) of k– ε turbulent model has been employed. The fluid region has been divided to 580 484 number of control volumes. The time variation of density at three sampling points in the tank has been compared with corresponding points in the model. The results show a good agreement.