Advanced Production Separator for Crude Oil Production in Thailand

Abstract

The propose is a new design and development of an advanced separator for oil production in Thailand on a prototype scale to order avoid deposition of sand contaminated include oil production. The novel separator was designed by installing a series of impellers along the horizontal bottom of the separator. The system was successfully implemented on the laboratory scale. A computational fluid dynamics (CFDs) model is employed to investigate the 3D hydrodynamics and flow behavior inside the separator tank modified with impellers. The CFD simulation was operated for 300 min. It could fundamentally demonstrate the flow phenomena of the crude fluids that the sand flowing out from the separator through the water outlet part depends on the accumulation of sand packing bed near the open channel of the outlet and including the effect of impeller rotation. It also shows the wave pattern of the sand outlet and the movement of the impeller did not disturb the efficiency of oil-water phase separation. In the laboratory experiments, the optimum conditions for sand separation in the water outlet part were investigated in terms of impeller sizes, the rotational speed of impellers, and the effect of duration times. The impeller sizes were compared between 3 inches and 5 inches in diameter. The results show that 5 inch-impeller is the optimum size for preventing the sand packing in this system. It was found that 200 rpm gave the most powerful speed of rotation to remove sand to the open channel. From all over the results of the CFD simulation and lab experiment, it could be concluded that the separator system with a strong rotation of impellers leads to effectively prevent sand sedimentation in the separator.