NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A PROCESS SEPARATOR FOR OIL AND WATER / SIMULAÇÃO NUMÉRICA DE UM FLOTADOR PARA SEPARAÇÃO DE ÓLEO DA ÁGUA

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2003

RESUMO

This work refers to an application for the treatment of produced water in oil and gas production platforms. It focuses on the analysis of flotation cells design and geometry influence in the oil-water separation process, in order to optimize their performance. Examples of application for the simulation tool are: internal retrofitting of existing equipments and performance comparisons for different design/geometries. The use of a numeric modeling methodology is proposed for the simulation of a flotation cell. The technique of finite volumes is used to solve mass conservation and linear momentum conservation equations, with the two equations for the k- épsilon turbulence model. For the flotation process, some models are used for the calculation of the collision probability, the adherence and the stability of the gas bubble - oil droplet system and the field of turbulence dissipation. The trajectory of the oil droplets is investigated for predicting the separation efficiency. Empiric data available in the literature is used in the validation of the methodology. Finally, a case study is analyzed for different design and geometries and for verifying the importance of the physical parameters in the flotation process.

ASSUNTO(S)

flotacao separacao de oleo oil separation flotation engenharia ambiental environmental engineering

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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