Computational Analysis of Effects of Location of the Diverter Plate and Inlet Velocity on the Efficiency of Two-Phase Flow Separator

Abstract

Two-phase horizontal gravity separators are generally
 used in the petroleum industry for gas and liquid separation. There are several
 studies in the relevant literature that reports various methods to determine
 the optimum diameter and length of the separator. Although the diverter plate
 is used to increase the separation speed, there is not any exact approach for
 specifying the appropriate location of the diverter plate on the inlet pipe. In
 the present study, the main volume of the separator is defined for a particular
 amount of mixture of oil and gas. Effects of the location of the diverter plate
 and inlet velocity on the separation efficiency are investigated for three
 locations of the diverter plate (100 mm, 150 mm, 200 mm) and four different inlet
 velocities (0,25 m/s, 0,5 m/s, 0,75 m/s, 1 m/s) by means of computational fluid
 dynamics (CFD) method. Two-phase, three-dimensional (3D) and fully turbulent
 flow simulations reveal that the highest separation efficiency is obtained as
 99% when the straight diverter plate is 200 mm far away from the top inlet and
 the inlet velocity is 0,25 m/s.