Experimental and CFD Modelling: Impact of the Inlet Slug Flow on the Horizontal Gas–Liquid Separator

Siong Lee,Thomas Choong,Zhen Ban,Luqman Abdullah,Mus’Ab Abdul Razak

doi:10.3390/en12010041

Siong Lee, Thomas Choong + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en12010041

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Abstract

For a gas-liquid separator sizing, many engineers have neglected the flow pattern of incoming fluids. The impact of inlet slug flow which impeded onto the separator’s liquid phase will cause a separator fails to perform when sloshing happened in the separator. To date, the study on verifying the impact of inlet slug flow in a separator remains limited. In this paper, the impact of inlet momentum and inlet slug flow on the hydrodynamics in a separator for cases without an inlet device were investigated. The experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results of cavity formation and sloshing occurrence in the separator in this study were compared. A User Defined Function (UDF) was used to describe the inlet slug flow at the separator inlet. Inlet slug flow occurred at inlet momentum from 200 to 1000 Pa, and sloshing occurred in the separator at 1000 Pa. Both experimental and simulated results showed similar phenomena.

Highlights

A two-phase or gas-liquid separator is commonly used in oil and gas production
To ensure the performance of a separator, Hansen (2001) has proposed several important general criteria, i.e., (1) to provide sufficient time to allow the immiscible gas and liquid phases to separate by gravity, (2) to provide sufficient time to allow for the coalescence of gas bubbles to improve degassing, (3) to allow for variation in the flow rates of gas and liquid or known as inlet momentum into the separator without adversely affecting separation efficiency [2]
Thisstudy study demonstrated that a deep was formed when the hydraulic jump jump from the inlet

Summary

Introduction

A two-phase or gas-liquid separator is commonly used in oil and gas production. A gas–liquid separator is a cylindrical vessel equipped with a liquid level control where the upper part is a gas-filled compartment, and the lower part is a liquid-filled compartment. The main function of a gas–liquid separator is for bulk phase separation, control, or dissipation the energy of the fluids as they leave the flowline and enter the separator [1,2]. (3) to allow for variation in the flow rates of gas and liquid or known as inlet momentum into the separator without adversely affecting separation efficiency [2]. These three criteria are important to ensure the gas and liquid can be separated into two distinct phases in the separator. The inlet momentum of incoming fluids is calculated based on mixture density, ρm (kg/m3 ) multiply with square of mixture mean volume flow velocity, v2m (m/s) in the flowlines, as shown in Equation (1)

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