Análise geométrica e termofluidodinâmica do transporte de óleos pesados, água e gás em duto cilíndrico elíptico via técnica core-flow.

Abstract

Much of the world's oil reserves consist of heavy oils. Due to the high viscosity, these oils have a greater resistance to flow, requiring high pumping powers, which cause an increase in the cost of the entire transport operation. As a solution to this problem, the core-flow technique emerged, which consists of injecting water at a volumetric flow rate lower than that of the oil, causing the heavy oil to be surrounded by a layer of water and to drain into the center of the duct without touching the inner wall. reducing the pressure loss due to friction. Therefore, this work aims to numerically study the three-phase flow of oil, water and gas in an elliptical pipe. For this, a three-dimensional, isothermal / non isothermal, turbulent, with k-ω model and incompressible flow was adopted. For the numerical solution of the governing equations, the Ansys FLUENT 15.0 software was used. Results of pressure, velocity and volumetric fraction fields for the phases are presented and analyzed. It was verifed that the isothermal flow of oil, gas and water in the core-flow pattern showed a pressure drop 7.2 times lower compared to the single phase flow of oil under the same operating conditions, thus showing the efficiency of the technique.