Improving the Energy Efficiency of a Gas Compression System at a Compressor Station

Abstract

For natural gas pumping via main gas line gas compressor units are used. During the gas compressor units’ operation, there are natural gas consumption as a fuel and for technological needs. To prevent the escape of gas from the internal cavity of the centrifugal compressor N-370-18-1 into machine room, the design considers a hydraulic seal “oil-gas”. The feature of centrifugal compressor with hydraulic seal “oil-gas” is the discharge of gas from the degassing chamber through a candle into the atmosphere. Rational use of wasted gas make it possible to gain a benefit by saving raw and reducing environmental charges. The gas discharged into the atmosphere is proposed to be used in the fuel gas system of the unit. This requires to bring gas parameters in particular pressure and temperature, to the required ones. The kinetic energy of the low-pressure (passive) gas directed from the gas separator to the candle can be increased by direct contact (mixing) with the high-pressure (active gas) flow in the gas-jet ejector. The complexity of the mathematical description of all processes occurring in ejectors with a three-dimensional flow, and the high cost of conducting experiments with gases other than air, make it cost-effective to use CFD (Computational fluid dynamics) modeling methods to study the processes of gas flow in ejectors. The article presents the gas flow modeling results of the gas flow in an ejector by the ANSYS Fluent software package.