Hidrodinâmica do escoamento trifásico de óleo, água e gás em dutos cilíndricos de seção transversal elíptica.

Abstract

The most economical and safe means of fluid movement in the petroleum industry are the pipelines, which is why they are considered one of the most efficient means of production flow between producing regions, platforms, refineries, marine terminals, storage parks and consumer centers . In the oil industry scenario, especially in deepwater exploration, there is concern regarding the operational costs involved in the transportation of these fluids and the need to increase production capacity. In these activities where high volumetric flow rates are often used, hydrodynamic losses are translated into a significant amount of energy. In view of this, this work aims to numerically study the three - phase flow of oil, water and gas in cylindrical ducts of elliptical cross section. For this, a three-dimensional, isothermal, laminar, incompressible flow with constant physicochemical properties was adopted. For the numerical solution of the governing equations the Ansys FLUENT software was used. The results of velocity, pressure and volumetric fraction distribution allowed the evaluation of the flow behavior inside the duct. It was observed that the higher the velocity and the volumetric fraction of the oil the greater the pressure drop inside the duct. It was also verified that the duct with circular cross section presents a better efficiency when compared to the duct with elliptical cross-section under the same operating conditions.