Separação óleo-água em hidrociclones: avaliação hidrodinâmica via CFD.

Abstract

Hydrocyclones are equipment used in separation processes. They are considered to be efficient, compact, safe, of simple construction and maintenance, and low cost, when compared to other equipment used in similar application. Such characteristics make them feasible to be applied in the oil industry, especially in oil-water separation. Therefore, this work aims to numerically analyze the separation process of the oil-water mixture in a hydrocyclone, regarding its fluid dynamic aspect. Flow in steady-state regime, two-phase, isothermal and incompressible was adopted. In the study, the Eulerian approach using the mass and momentum conservation equations, and the RNG k-ε turbulence model were used. For the numerical solution of the governing equations, the Ansys CFX software was used. The effects of the inlet velocity of the fluid mixture, volumetric fraction of oil in the feed stream and diameter of oil drop, on the performance of the equipment were evaluated. From the results obtained, it was found that, once the geometric configuration of the equipment was fixed, an increase in the inlet velocity of the fluid mixture, volumetric fraction of oil and the diameter of the oil drop increase the separation efficiency of the equipment, reaching values greater than 98%.