Full text loading...
-
Tangential Inlet Supersonic Separator: a Great Opportunity for the Sustainable Development of Natural Gas Industry
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 79th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2017, Jun 2017, Volume 2017, p.1 - 5
Abstract
The supersonic separation is a novel technology for the exploration and development of natural gas. It is an extremely friendly-environmental system that it needs not any chemicals during the separation process. Therefore, the supersonic separator proposes a fantastic method for the sustainable development of natural gas industry. In the present study, a tangential inlet is newly designed to generate a strong swirling flow for the supersonic separation. The flow structures of natural gas separation are performed using the computational fluid dynamics. The results show that the low static pressure and temperature can be obtained in the newly designed supersonic separator, which creates a good condition for the nucleation and condensation of the water vapour. The tangential inlet induces a high strength swirling flow with a very high centrifugal acceleration of 1.9×10^7 m/s^2. Moreover, the tangential inlet supersonic separator can maintain a very stable swirling flow in the whole device, which ensures the high separation efficiency.