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ISSN Online: 2379-1748

ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-469-4

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-470-0

Second Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference
April, 2-5, 2017, Las Vegas, NV, USA

EFFECTS OF THE CONFIGURATION OF THE VANE DISTRIBUTOR ON THE SEPARATION EFFICIENCY OF THE FWKO

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 3177-3186
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2017.tpo.018232

Abstract

The multiphase separator is used to separate gas and liquids of different densities such as oil and water. In particular, the free water knock out (FWKO) vessel is generally used as the primary and largest separator on an oil-production platform. Internal devices such as the inlet distributor significantly affect the separation efficiency of the FWKO vessel. The vane distributor is one of the important inlet devices that can improve the separation efficiency by reducing the kinetic energy and velocity of the feed fluids. In this study, the effect of the inlet-vane configuration on the separation efficiency was numerically investigated using the commercial code ANSYS Fluent ver. 16.1. The velocity-vector field and the volume fraction were calculated and graphically depicted to check the stabilization of the liquid phase. In addition, the oil-mass flow rate and the water cut were employed to evaluate the separation efficiency of the FWKO vessel.