Gas Liquid Separators Quantifying Separation Performance Part 3 SPE MEB (original) (raw)
Gas/Liquids Separators: Quantifying Separation Performance - Part 2
Oil and Gas Facilities, 2013
I n this second article of a three-part series, methods for improved quantification of operating performances of the gas gravity separation, the mist extraction, and the liquid gravity separation sections of gas/liquid separators are discussed. These methods can be used for the selection and design of new separators, as well as the rating of existing separators. Part 1 of the series in August provided a general discussion of separation equipment classification, as well as existing limitations to methods used for quantifying separator performance. The main parts of a typical gas/liquid separator, vertical or horizontal, are shown in Fig. 1, including the feed pipe, inlet device, gas gravity separation section, mist extractor, and the liquid gravity separation section. Part 1 discussed the feed pipe and inlet device.
Gas/Liquids Separators-Part 2 Quantifying Separation Performance
I n this second article of a three-part series, methods for improved quantification of operating performances of the gas gravity separation, the mist extraction, and the liquid gravity separation sections of gas/liquid separators are discussed. These methods can be used for the selection and design of new separators, as well as the rating of existing separators. Part 1 of the series in August provided a general discussion of separation equipment classification, as well as existing limitations to methods used for quantifying separator performance. The main parts of a typical gas/liquid separator, vertical or horizontal, are shown in Fig. 1, including the feed pipe, inlet device, gas gravity separation section, mist extractor, and the liquid gravity separation section. Part 1 discussed the feed pipe and inlet device.
Separator vessels are commonly used in refinery, petrochemical plants, or gas processing plants to separate the vapor-liquid mixtures, and three phase mixtures, these vessel may be called knockout drums, accumulators, flash drums, vapor/liquid separators, reflux drums, or three-phase separators. The performance is determined by the characteristics of the fluid being separated, the size of the vessel and the type of internals installed. This guideline will provide a review of the important parameters in separator vessel sizing and selection.
A Novel Approach to Obtaining the Optimum Pressure and Stages of Separators
Iranian Journal of Oil and Gas Science and Technology, 2020
Nowadays, the increasing demand for energy in the world is one of the main concerns for energy supply. In fact, the required energy can be obtained by increasing the production rate of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. However, improving the efficiency of the equipment and facilities might have a significant impact on production from hydrocarbon resources. With respect to this subject, the optimization of separation facilities will be a simple and economic choice to increase the amount of the liquid obtained from production units all over the world. One of the parameters which have a noticeable effect on the yield of the production units is the separator pressure. Also, there are other factors such as heptane plus fraction properties, well head pressure, and ambient temperature which can change the optimum separator conditions. In this study, the influence of crude oil properties on the number of stages and pressure of each separator is investigated. The result shows that th...
Development of Model and Simulation of a Two-Phase, Gas-Liquid Horizontal Separator
In recent years, the performance requirements for petroleum process plants have become increasingly difficult to satisfy. In order to understand, design and operate the complex systems in the petroleum industries at relatively low cost and with minimum risk, mathematical modelling becomes very useful. Thus, this paper proposes some developed mathematical models for a two-phase gas-liquid horizontal separator, which is valid with an accuracy of about 1.641% based on the liquid temperature values. Simulated temperature values were 300.24 K, 299.69 K and 299.14 K with the corresponding industrial values as 300.22 K, 299.67 K and 299.11 K respectively. Within the boundaries of the limitations stated, the model could be used to predict the operation of the separator at different operating conditions, to optimize the separator products and as a tool for further expansion amongst other uses.
Validation of the Molar Flow Rates of Oil and Gas in Three-Phase Separators Using Aspen Hysys
2021
A three-phase separator is the first vessel encountered by well fluids. The application of separators has been of great value to the oil and gas industry. In order to generate the gas phase envelope that is applicable to the study of reservoir fluid and the selection of optimum operating conditions of separators, this research utilizes a specified reservoir fluid stream to simulate a three-phase separator executed in Aspen HYSYS. Subsequently, a comparative study of the effects of specified inlet operating conditions on the output of gas and oil streams was carried out. The results show that changing the inlet pressure of the separator from 1000 to 8000 kPa reduces the gas outlet flow from 1213 to 908.6 kg mol/h, while it increases the liquid flow rate from 374 to 838.0 kg mole/h. By changing the temperature of the separator feed stream from 13 to 83 °C, the gas outlet stream was raised from 707.4 to 1111 kg mol/h, while the liquid flow rate dropped from 1037.0 to 646.1 kg mol/h. It...
Correlating Optimum Stage Pressure for Sequential Separator Systems
SPE Projects, Facilities & Construction, 2010
Summary A study to find the optimum separators pressures of separation stations has been performed. Stage separation of oil and gas is accomplished with a series of separators operating at sequentially reduced pressures. Liquid is discharged from a higher-pressure separator into the lower-pressure separator. The set of working separator pressures that yields maximum recovery of liquid hydrocarbon from the well fluid is the optimum set of pressures, which is the target of this work. A computer model is used to find the optimum separator pressures. The model employs the Peng-Robinson equation of state (Peng and Robinson 1976) for volatile oil. The application of this model shows significant improvement of all objective functions for many oils (Hassan 2004). Mathematical correlations for estimating optimum set of pressures have been deduced from the model to provide simple and quick tools to find the optimum stages pressures. Many tests have been achieved with many volatile samples at ...
Investigating the separation efficiency of Air-Water-Oil flow in a three phase pipe separator
2014
The possibility of using a three phase pipe separator to separate a mixture of air-water oil was investigated. A 30 ID laboratory based pipe separator was designed, fabricated and installed to study the separation efficiency of air-water-oil mixture. A mixture of airwater-oil flow run through the pipe separator and the separation efficiency calculated in term of the percentage of clean water by volume at the water-rich outlet calculated. The results obtained showed that a clean water stream at the water-rich outlet of the pipe separator is achievable at high water volume fractions and low oil content. This confirmed the possibility that the three phase pipe separator can function as a free water knock-out device. © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved. ARTIC LE INFO
Design and CFD studies of multiphase separators-a review
The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2012
The multiphase separators are generally the first and largest process equipment in an oil production platform. This primary separation step is a key element in the oil and gas production facilities in that downstream equipment, such as compressors, are completely dependent on the efficient performance of these multiphase separators. The literature on this critical unit operation, multiphase separators, abounds with macro studies and design methodologies for two-and three-phase vertical and horizontal separators. There are very few studies that provide the micro details of the actual separation process. In fact, the popular classic methods for separator design, mostly due to a lack of a usable mathematical model for estimation of droplet 'separation velocities', do result in a conservative design and would specify extremely oversized separators. In order to reflect the current situation and address recent findings, this study will review the important literature on design and CFD simulation of multiphase separators. This review will show the benefits that CFD analyses can provide in optimising the design of new separators and solving problems with existing designs.
Effect of pressure and salinity on the performance of a gas-liquid separator—a preliminary study
The APPEA Journal
The separation of liquid from gas during the initial stages of the separation process is very important in increasing well productivity. This is why the design of an efficient and compact gas-liquid separator has received much attention from academic researchers as well as field operators. They all state the necessity of compact design in deploying separators offshore (and potentially subsea) to enhance the recovery of gas wells. This investigation describes an experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of a laboratory-scale compact gas-liquid separator designed by CSIRO. The separator consists of two concentric pipes with a swirl tube in the annular space between the pipes. The gas-liquid mixture comes from the tangential side inlet, and the system works with a combination of gravity and centrifugal forces to achieve a highly efficient gas-liquid separation. The effect of pressure and salinity on the performance of the gas-liquid CSIRO’s separation technology (CS...
FILTER SEPARATOR SIZING AND SELECTION, Kolmetz Handbook of Process Equipment Design
Filtration is commonly the mechanical or physical operation which is used for the separation of solids from fluids (liquids or gases) by interposing a medium (a permeable fabric or porous bed of materials) through which only the fluid can pass. The solid can be retained on the surface of the filter medium, which is cake filtration, or captured within the filter medium, which is depth filtration. Separator vessels are commonly used in refinery, petrochemical plants, or gas processing plants to separate the vapor-liquid-solid mixtures, and three phase mixtures, these vessel may be called knockout drums, accumulators, flash drums, vapor/liquid separators, reflux drums, or three-phase separators. The performance is determined by the characteristics of the fluid being separated, the size of the vessel and the type of internals installed. This guideline will provide a review of the important parameters in filter separator sizing and selection.
Brazilian Journal of Petroleum and Gas
This work aims to use factorial designs to evaluate changes in the operating conditions of a three-phase separator. It performs experiments using a Hysys simulation software. It evaluates the influences of temperature, working pressure, and type of separator for light and heavy oils. To find the best operating conditions theoretically, higher oil flow rate (outlet stream) and smaller amount of water in the oil stream are used as reference goals. After performing simulations, the data is analyzed, and one can observe that the effect type of separator does not have a statistically significant influence in the results. The best operating condition occurs with the temperature at 30 o C and the pressure at 9 bar, lowest and highest levels suited, respectively.
SPE 25474 Predicting Liquid Re Entrainment in horizontal separators 5
The design procedure for horizontal separator sizing results in a range of configurations of vessel diameter and length that will perform adequate gas-liquid separation. The actual diameter chosen depends on a trade-off between smaller, more economic diameters, and the larger diameters needed to prevent re-entrainment of previously separated liquid droplets that can break away from the gas-liquid interface. The lower diameter limit has been previously determined by design guidelines based on the slenderness ratio of the vessel. This article presents a procedure for determining the lower diameter limit and for calculating the maximum gas capacity of a horizontal separator based on liquid re-entrainment. The method is based on correlations for predicting the onset of liquid re-entrainment developed previously by Ishii and GroImes. The procedure uses known and predicted liquid and gas properties and may be used in conjunction with normal design procedures for more economic horizontal separator designs.
Two-phase horizontal gravity separators are widely used in the petroleum industry. Design of these separators are based on empirical correlations and the design approach is described by the international standard API12J (American Petroleum Institute). Other literature provides different design approaches for defining the length and diameter of separator. However, there is no clear described method to determine the position of diverter neither in literature nor in API standards. In this study, the main sizes of a separator were determined for a specific oilgas mixture using the empirical correlations from API and literature. To analyze the effects of the position of the diverter and perforated plates on the separation efficiency; two-phase flow simulations were conducted using CFD software ANSYS CFX. The CFD simulations were carried out for two different diverter plate distances from the inlet. The diverter plate was located 100 mm and 170 mm from the inlet. Additionally, simulation was also performed with perforated baffle plates when the diverter plate is positioned 170 mm from the inlet. To estimate the effects of these different configurations on separation efficiency, the CFD simulations results were compared. It has been observed that perforated plates and position of the inlet diverter affect the separation efficiency. When the inlet diverter is located 100 mm from the inlet, the separation efficiency of 98.5% is obtained. When the inlet diverter is located at a distance 170 mm from the inlet, the separation efficiency increases to 99.32%. When perforated plates are assembled onto the separator, the separation efficiency increases further. A petroleum company, which produces about 25,550,000 barrels of oil per year, can save 252,945 barrels of oil every year if the separation efficiency increases by 0.99%. This provides $27,823,950 extra profit per year.