The Research Of Slug Splitting And Pre-separating Device Based On T-junctions

Liquid and gas flow is widely seen in all kinds of industrial processes, among the differentflow patterns it induces, slug flow is the most common one which can do much damage.Compared with single phase flow, multiphase flow is both dangerous and inconvenient to transfer.To deal with these problems, an effective approach to separate liquid and gas is really necessary.Gravity settler is reliable and effective, but there are also some limitations such as bulky size, highoperating cost, potential dangers like toxic materials and explos ion risk.According to the research, phase separation occurs when liquid and gas flow through aT-junction, ending up with two streams rich in gas and liquid respectively. This phenomena ofT-junction makes two points: enhancing the phase separation changes it into a liquid and gaspre-separator; weakening the phase separation changes it into a multiphase splitter. Bothmentioned are of great meaning in oil and gas production.As a partial phase separation device, a series of T-junctions are compact and reliable,especially beneficial when used on off-shore oil platforms. After the T-junctions, a conventionalgravity settler is used to separate the liquid and gas stream, due to the pre-separation of theT-junctions, it allows for smaller downstream separator vessels. In this paper, by analyzing theresults of the simulation and experiment, a design code of pipeline separator is presented.For the design of multiphase flow splitter, a proper structure is suggested by comparing theresults of simulation and experiment. According to the phenomena of the experiment, to splitmultiphase flow evenly demands the splitter to be symmetry and installed strictly horizontal.