Local Measurements and CFD Simulations in a Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone©*·

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Local Measurements and CFD Simulations in a Gas-Liquid
Cylindrical Cyclone©*·
Ferhat M. Erdal, Doctoral Candidate, Mechanical Engineering
Honorable Mention, Student Research Colloquium 2000

Developing compact separators remains a critical and yet overlooked problem for the oil and gas industry, which has relied on conventional separators for many years. The GLCC© separator is an attractive alternative to the conventional vessel-type separator, especially for offshore platforms in oil and gas production operations. Thus, it is important to develop predictive tools for design and to be able to improve the technology of the GLCC.©
Experimental studies on the flow field behavior in a GLCC© are scarce. The main objective of this work is to conduct local measurements and CFD simulations to understand the flow behavior in a GLCC.© Axial and tangential velocities and turbulent intensities across the GLCC© diameter were measured at 24 different axial locations (12.5² to 35.4² below the inlet) by using a Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV). The liquid flow rate was 72 gpm, which corresponds to an average axial velocity of 0.732 m/s. Axial velocity measurements indicate the flow is highly non-symmetrical around the axis of the GLCC.© Axial velocity measurements also indicated downward flow near the wall of the GLCC© and small upward flow near the center, but off the axis of the test section. The axial velocity contour map obtained from local measurements shows that the reverse axial velocity region (upward flow region) has a helical shape. The axial downward flow has a helical path near the wall. Tangential velocity measurements show that free vortex occurs near the wall region and forced vortex occurs near the center of the GLCC.© The location of zero tangential velocity is also off the axis of the GLCC.© Turbulent kinetic energy is relatively high near the center and in the region near the inlet. Turbulent intensities in different directions have similar profiles and same order-of-magnitude.
The experimental results are compared with preliminary computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. In this simulation, k-e turbulence model with Hybrid dicretisation scheme is used. The CFD simulations show the trend of the experimental data.

* Supported by The Tulsa University Separation Technology Projects and Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science and Technology.
· GLCCÓ - Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone – copyright, The University of Tulsa, 1994.

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