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CFDESIGN FOR THE OIL INDUSTRY
Hoses made of nanocomposite materials for the oil industry are exposed to special loads. The specialty lies in the liquid delivered (the oil contains for example sand) and in the velocity of flow.
The speed of the thick fluid is 15m/s which is much faster than the commonly used 3-5 m/s in tubes. Because of the application (the delivered fluid, working pressure, loads from the environment, etc.) and because of the structure of the hose, a spiral steel internal tube is inserted into the rubber hose. This spiral steel tube can withstand the above mentioned loads, provides flexibility that is required for example when conveying oil from tankers to the land based oil refinery.
The spiral tube because of its structure creates a 3-4 mm deep spiral groove along the length of the hose. This groove has a significant effect on the pressure loss which can only be determined by measurements or simulations.
In this project CFD Engineering had to determine the equivalent wall roughness value that replaced the geometry of the grooves and created the same velocity profile. This wall roughness value could be used for predicting the pressure loss of the tube in the preliminary design stage. The results of the simulation could be compared with the wall roughness data from previous measurements as well.
The CFD simulation had to show high accuracy in determining the thickness of the boundary layer. The thickness of the boundary layer and this way the velocity profile was different for each spiral tube type. The accurate solution required many elements so 2D axisymmetric analyses were conducted. The spiral shape of the groove was neglected; the 2D simulation used a slice of the tube with the cross-sections of the groove following each other with the given pitch. The picture shows a small part of the slice. Mesh enhancement and Automatic layer adaptation were used to calculate the boundary layer of the turbulent flow. The results of the grooved hose and the pipe with wall roughness on were compared and the wall roughness value was modified until the velocity profiles matched.
Simulations made with CFdesign offer valuable help for companies whose product development depended on measured data only. Knowing the key features of a new product in terms of fluid flow and heat transfer without building so many prototypes is not a luxury any longer. The oil industry is a field where CFdesign already has an international reference. This upfront CFD tool is used in many companies where results have to be delivered fast. From now on a Hungarian reference also shows the importance of oil industry in our focus.
2007.10.08 - CFD Engineering Hungary Kft. |
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