Modeling and Simulation of a Free Floating PIG for Different Inclination Angle using CFD

The oil and gas industry is constantly and rapidly growing with new technologies and method to mitigate problems occurred, whether at downstream or upstream. Pipeline leakage is one of major issue faced by the industry today. Leak can be disastrous if not detected in early stage. One of the most popular method used to detect leakage is Pipeline Inspection Gauge, PIG. One of the biggest challenges in using PIG as leak detection is the movement of the PIG in pipeline. Pipeline configuration can be very complex with bends and also inclination along the way. A conventional PIG might face a problem called “stalled PIG”. To overcome this, a free floating PIG can be used. A free floating PIG is a type of PIG which is spherical in shape and that does not occupy the whole space in the pipe. The main objective of this study is to identify the flow parameters needed by the free floating PIG to be able to travel throughout the pipeline with different inclination angle. To achieve this objectives, Computational Fluid Dynamics approach will be used. ANSYS Fluent is used as the main method to study the parameters of PIG flow. The fluid flow model will be created using the k-epsilon model and all the calculation and iteration will be calculated using second order upwind. The key inputs will be the fluid type, diameter, mass and density of the free floating PIG, and the inlet velocity. Thus, for each inclination angle, the key outputs which are the minimum fluid velocity to propel the free floating PIG, fluid pressure, trajectory of PIG and also the velocity of PIG have been identified. The results is discussed as to understand how the free floating PIG behave in the pipeline and what is the minimum velocity needed to propel the free floating PIG through the inclination angle. To verify the simulation result, a flow loop is required. The layout of the flow loop have been designed and must be constructed. Due to limitation of time and resource, the flow loop construction cannot be done within the period of this project. Another limitation on this project is the flow assurance matters. ANSYS Fluent does not have such features to take into account the matters in the simulation. For the future work of this project, the flow loop must be constructed and experimented to further justify the results gained from the simulation.