Modelagem e simulação de um vaso separador horizontal bifásico.

Abstract

The separators are equipments used in the primary processing of the petroleum industry to separate the multiphase mixture from the producing wells. The work evaluated the effect of the internal devices of the separator vessel on the flow dynamics in the gas/oil separation process. A mathematical model was defined based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the horizontal two-phase separator. The Eulerian-Eulerian approach was adopted, considering the mixture model, available in Ansys CFX 15.0 software. The domain consists of a horizontal cylindrical separator consisting of a porous plate that divides it in to two regions: the primary separation, containing three internal devices (one deflector plate and two baffles) and the settling region. A numerical grid was generated employing tetrahedral elements, for the discretization of the mass conservation, linear momentum and k standard turbulence equations using the finite volume method. Isothermal flow with constant fluid properties in both steady state and transient regimes were assumed, and, from the interfacial forces, only the drag forces were considered. The velocity vector field results as well as the volumetric fraction of the phases indicate that the flow dynamics are strongly dependent on the internal devices. In the primary separation region, a high-level of mixing was observed due to the turbulence generated by the impact of the fluids on a deflector plate positioned immediately after the inlet section. The porous plate allowed a reduction of the turbulence of the fluids, caused by the resistance of the porous medium to the flow.