Computational Analysis of Effects of Location of the Diverter Plate and Inlet Velocity on the Efficiency of Two-Phase Flow Separator

Year 2019, Volume: 22 Issue: 3, 575 - 581, 01.09.2019

Sedat Yayla Karwan Kamal Seyfettin Bayraktar

https://doi.org/10.2339/politeknik.567055

Abstract

Two-phase horizontal gravity separators are generally
used in the petroleum industry for gas and liquid separation. There are several
studies in the relevant literature that reports various methods to determine
the optimum diameter and length of the separator. Although the diverter plate
is used to increase the separation speed, there is not any exact approach for
specifying the appropriate location of the diverter plate on the inlet pipe. In
the present study, the main volume of the separator is defined for a particular
amount of mixture of oil and gas. Effects of the location of the diverter plate
and inlet velocity on the separation efficiency are investigated for three
locations of the diverter plate (100 mm, 150 mm, 200 mm) and four different inlet
velocities (0,25 m/s, 0,5 m/s, 0,75 m/s, 1 m/s) by means of computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) method. Two-phase, three-dimensional (3D) and fully turbulent
flow simulations reveal that the highest separation efficiency is obtained as
99% when the straight diverter plate is 200 mm far away from the top inlet and
the inlet velocity is 0,25 m/s.

Keywords

Oil gas separation, two-phase flow, horizontal separator

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