NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF CRUDE OIL-WATER FLOW PHASE SEPARATION IN T-JUNCTION

T-junctions are very common within pipe networks in a wide range of industrial applications in the chemical and petroleum industries. Understanding the behavior of liquid-liquid two-phase flow through a T-junction is very important as it has significant effect on the operation, maintenance and efficiency of the components downstream from the junction. Specifically this project objectives are i) to investigate the geometric effect on separation efficiency in T-junction, and ii) to analyze the fraction of oil taken off in a T-junction at different operating conditions and parameters. The phase distribution of the two-phase flow is simulated using FLUENT. The diameter ratio, length ratio, inlet oil fraction, density ratio and mixture velocity ratio are identified as the main factors affecting the fraction of oil taken off in T-junction. At the end of this project, it is observed that the density ratio plays the most important role on phase separation, followed by mixture velocity ratio and length ratio. Conversely, both diameter ratio and inlet oil fraction have least impact on phase separation efficiency. The efficiency of phase separation and the geometric effect of the T-junctions on the flow split are understood in order to achieve an optimum passive separation performance for optimal operation of downstream components from the junction.