MODELING THE BEHAVIOR OF THE OIL EMULSION FLOW IN THE CHANNEL OF THE IN-TUBE SPIRAL TURBULATOR

Abstract

This article describes the calculation and simulation of the flow when flowing through the channel of an in-line spiral turbulator. The design of the in-line spiral turbulator was developed in order to prevent stratification of the oil emulsion in the laminar flow mode. Its purpose is to protect the inner surface of field oil pipelines from groove corrosion. This type of corrosion occurs due to the occurrence of a laminar flow regime of the oil emulsion, where oil and reservoir water are stratified due to a difference in density. The principle of operation of the turbulator is to provide the flow of motion with a swirl due to the mounted spiral in the inner part of the turbulator body along the entire length. The use of the plate design in the form of a spiral is due to the lower coefficient of local resistance. To calculate hydrodynamic problems, calculations were performed in the ANSYS CFX program. Corrosion-resistant materials and inhibitors are mainly used to protect the internal surfaces of pipelines from corrosion. The use of additions of corrosion inhibitors to the pipeline flow has inaccuracies, namely: at what point it is necessary to start applying inhibitory protection and in what places of the flow sections, in what quantity and what exactly to feed. Under certain conditions, an effective way to prevent the occurrence of a laminar flow regime is a technological method, the essence of which is to increase the pumping pressure or flow rate, in which it is impossible to contact the reservoir water with the inner surface of the pipeline, but the increase in these parameters is limited. Oil flow turbulators, such as the wellhead turbulator of the pipeline flow, the turbulator in the oil desalination unit, the static flow mixer, the turbulator with dissecting couplings have one common drawback in the form of high local resistance. The designs of these turbulators are designed for rough mixing of flows and have a high coefficient of local resistance relative to the in-Line spiral turbulator.