Abstract
There is a sudden increase in demand and utilization of natural gas in Nigeria; this may be attributed to federal government policy on establishment of independent power plants and the rising cost of kerosene and fire wood. This increase in demand for natural gas call for design and construction of pipelines for natural gas transportation from production zones to consuming areas. Natural gas transmission through pipelines is accepted as the best method for high capacities gas transmission. Due to the high capital investment and operating cost required for natural gas pipeline transmission systems, optimum designs become inevitable. Cost of compression form a significant part of the operating cost of natural gas pipeline system and can be reduced by optimum design. This paper focuses on the development of software for optimum design and simulation of natural gas pipeline. General Gas equation coupled with correlations for friction factor, Reynolds number, viscosity of gas mixture, compressibility factor etc were used to developed an algorithm from which the software was developed using VISUAL BASIC 6.0. The effect of different operating variables and pipeline dimensions could be investigated using this software. The software was tested for functionality using a typical design problem from literature. Comparison of the software result and that of literature shows that the software can be use for preliminary design and simulation purposes.
Highlights
Natural gas pipeline design is an important aspect of natural gas transmission and distribution
The economy of natural gas pipeline operation largely depends among other factors on the pipeline system design
4.1 Structure of the software; The Visual Basic programs written for the design and simulation of natural gas pipeline were linked to form the software GASPSIM
Summary
Natural gas pipeline design is an important aspect of natural gas transmission and distribution. The design of natural gas pipeline system was mostly based on empirical gas flow equations, such as Weymouth, Panhandle and modified Panhandle (Paulo & Pinho, 2007). The current trend centered on the use of general gas equation which takes account of the computation of the actual value of the friction factor in a design, instead of the inefficient empirical equations. This led to the use of computer programs since iterative methods are required in providing solutions to the model equations. Several designs options are normally considered in order to decide on the optimum flow rate, compression power requirement, pressure and. Of gas flow equations for calculating gas pipeline capacity and pressure requirements used in sizing compression facilities.
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