Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

An improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for predicting hydrate deposition rate and wall shear stress in offshore gas-dominated pipeline.

Umuteme, Oghenethoja Monday; Islam, Sheikh Zahidul; Hossain, Mamdud; Karnik, Aditya

Authors

Oghenethoja Monday Umuteme



Abstract

Gas hydrates in pipelines is still a flow assurance problem in the oil and gas industry, and requires a proactive hydrate plugging risk predicting model. As an active area of research, this work has developed a 3D 10m length by 0.0204m diameter horizontal pipe CFD model based on the eulerian-eulerian multiphase modelling framework to predict hydrate deposition rate in a gas-dominated pipeline. The proposed model simulates the conditions for hydrate formation with user defined functions (UDFs) for both energy and mass sources implemented in ANSYS Fluent, a commercial CFD software. The empirical hydrate deposition rates predicted by this model at varying subcooling temperatures and gas velocities are consistent with experimental results within ±10% uncertainty bound. At lower gas velocity of 4.7m/s, the model overpredicted the hydrate deposition rates of the experimental results in Aman et al. (2016) by 9–25.7%, whereas the analytical model of Di Lorenzo et al. (2018) underpredicted the same experimental results by a range of 27–33%. Consequently, the CFD model can enhance proactive hydrate plugging risk predictions earlier than the analytical model, especially at low gas productivity. Similarly, at a velocity of 8.8m/s and subcooling temperatures of 2.5K, 7.1K and 8.0K, the CFD model underpredicted the hydrate deposition rates of the regressed experimental results in Di Lorenzo et al. (2014a) by 14%, 6% and 4% respectively, and overpredicted the results by 1% at a subcooling temperature of 4.3K. From the CFD model results, we also suggest that hydrate sloughing shear stress is relatively constant, and the wall shedding shear stress by hydrate vary during deposition. Finally, the CFD model also predicted the phase change during hydrate formation, agglomeration, and deposition.

Citation

UMUTEME, O.M., ISLAM, S.Z., HOSSAIN, M. and KARNIK, A. 2022. An improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for predicting hydrate deposition rate and wall shear stress in offshore gas-dominated pipeline. Journal of natural gas science and engineering [online], 107, article 104800. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2022.104800

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 19, 2022
Online Publication Date Sep 24, 2022
Publication Date Nov 30, 2022
Deposit Date Sep 27, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of natural gas science and engineering
Print ISSN 1875-5100
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 107
Article Number 104800
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2022.104800
Keywords Hydrate Deposition Rates; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Hydrate Plugging and Pipe Blockage; Gas Consumption; Gas Solubility in Water; Wall Shear Stress
Public URL https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1763970

Files





You might also like



Downloadable Citations