Study of the operating efficiency of centrifugal separators for gas preparation

There exist two ways to intensify production in an oil and gas facility: the first one involves accepting associated petroleum gas for treatment from third-party subsoil users and supplying gas to the main gas pipeline in accordance with the technical specifications, while the second one concerns upgrading crucial processing equipment, which includes separators. Associated petroleum gas as mixed with natural gas affects the separation process in terms of a significant decrease in separator efficiency for the same set of operational parameters due to increasing the mass flow rate. In turn, this low separation efficiency results in the separated gas ablating the liquid phase. This factor varies over a wide range and depends on the design and actual performance of the separator, as well as on the pressure, temperature and composition of the gas mixture supplied. We consider a tentative layout for a centrifugal separator of a combined design for treating natural gas containing a quantity of associated petroleum gas. The paper presents numerical computation results for the separation simulation, as well as data obtained during actual separator operation for different heat and pressure values. We established that the separator design proposed provides high efficiency of gas treatment.

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