COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS STUDY ON T-JUNCTION SEPARATOR FOR LIQUID-GAS SEPARATION

The separation of liquid-gas flow is an essential part of many industrial processes and the occurrence of multiphase flow in the petroleum industry is very common in the production and processing facilities of hydrocarbon. These separations are performed in large separator vessels under the effect of gravity containing large inventories of potentially flammable and/or toxic materials. The application of a simple defined partial phase separator (T-junction) would produce two streams, one rich in gas and the other rich in liquid. This would be beneficial to the petroleum industry especially in offshore oil platforms where safety, space, weight and cost are highly emphasized. Therefore, this project presents the study of fluid model on liquid-gas flow separation at a horizontal T-junction. Simulations were analyzed using numerical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Numerical results of pressure profile and volume fraction of phases for fluid models are presented and analyzed to propose a new or improved T-junction design with better separation efficiency.