Influence of Flow Characteristics on the Design of Two-Phase Horizontal Separators

Abstract

Flouid streams produced from petroleum reservoirs reach surface as complicated mixtures consisting of multi-phase gas, oil, and water. Depending on the quantity of each phase, separators should be designed and installed to handle the mixture and separate it into pure phases for further treatment of each phase. Separators design follows calculations of sequential concepts that lead to determination of the optimum size (internal diameter and length) that provide efficient separation process at lowest cost. In this paper, the influence of flow characteristics has been studied using published calculation models. Because these models are performed through multi-step and iterated calculations which are time consuming, an algorithm and computational program has been developed to facilitate the analysis at this stage and serve as a robust computational tool for future work. Using the computational tool, the analysis results indicate significant influence of flow characteristics and separation conditions on separators design.