Smart Facility Advanced Separator

Abstract The objective of this work was to develop the prototype unit of Advanced Production Separator (APS) for simultaneous removal of sand, out from production separator. APS unit was fabricated with size Diameter × Length: 1 × 2 m. System controlling of rotational blades impellers was installed at the bottom section of separator, to prevent sand accumulation at bottom of separator while on-service. This facility will help in preventing of sand accumulation in the separator, leading to minimize period of separator downtime during annual maintenance period, and allowing more working volume for open fluid reservoir to gas-oil phase production separator. Moreover, this will minimize working period for worker going inside the separator for sand clean-out, as a concern of working in the confine space. The optimum conditions for separation of sand and crude oil will be examined, with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model simulation to observe hydrodynamic flow, relating the experimental conditions. The effects of size of 1) Imperller shapes (model A, B, and C), and 2) Rotational speed of impellers (0, 50, 100, 150, and 200 rpm) were investigated to determine the optimal conditions for APS system. In this work, experimental test run result were compared with CFD simulation result. The optimum conditions for prototype APS unit (800 Litres capacity) is Fan C impeller shape for 5 items, and rotation speed for 150 rpm. This result shows the percentage of sand removal reaching to about 70%. The highest amount of sand in water outlet was found at this optimal condition, corresponding with the small part of sand dune at the bottom of the separator after impellers were driving sand to the outlet channel. From the test run, it was found that experimental results, and CFD simulation are consistent. CFD simulation result can be applied as a first screening to forecast sand removal pattern. This research illustrate the alternative novel solution for solving sand production accumulation problem in production separator, by instantly clear sand out while crude oil operation was on-going. In the future phase, CFD simulation will be further used as a first step for predicting result before separator scale-up. Separator will be experimented with 4-phases (oil, water, gas, and sand), and further expand for 4X of the original size to see an effect of scale-up. Aim to unlock high potential field, by reducing downtime of the separation during sand cleaning, and providing more working volume of separator after sand was removed out from self-cleaning separator.