EFFICIENCY COMPARISON OF TANKS OF PRE-FLOTATION USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS (CFD) SIMULATION

OVERVIEW
The volumes of oily water (water + oil) that are produced during petroleum production have been increasing. Engineers are concerned on what one should do with this amount of water. Flotation process is a method for oil/water separation widely used in wastewater treatment. Removal of free and dispersed oil in water. Evaluate alternative technologies or modify e istent technologies.

OBJECTIVES
!imulate a flotation tan" for the treatment of produced water. #btain a geometric configuration that improves the separation of the original tan" simulation. The original tan" has a distributor of oily$water in the bottom of the tan"% a water collector below the mi ture distributor and oil collector at the top of the tan". Evaluated three different configurations& Tan" with internal devices (original configuration) Tan" without internals Tan" with chicanes.

METHODOLOGY
' study of the influence of the use of source points was performed. (ery simple )two$dimensional) rectangular domain. *n the first test% a coarse mesh was used applying a mass and momentum source. *n the second test% the small fluid in+ection face was fully reproduced with a fine mesh. ,uantities at the )in+ection point) region behave as )space averages) of the real in+ection case. -onservation of mass and momentum are respected. .o physical phenomena was lost by the application of the source points. /ased on this study all the distributor/collector piping were replaced in the simulation by arrays of source points. Tan" internal distributor and collector. #il collector was not included due to the 0agrangian boundary condition (at the tan" top).

RESULTS
.ot all the collection holes are used over the collectors piping (bad holes distribution simulation). The distribution of velocity along the distributor holes was nearly uniform while% in the collector% the flow rate distribution was not evenly distributed. The tan" with chicanes the oily water is barred by chicanes and all droplets are collected in two firsts compartments. *n the tan" without internals% the oily water is in+ected and )short$cut) to outlet. The use of chicanes reduces the amount of recirculation inside the tan" increasing the average residence time.

CONCLUSIONS For !" #$% &' ! (') r'*+ or #$( ,o--", or). !" ,o--", or o/ &# "r &or%) '$"//','"$ -0 (+$"1"$ /-o& r# " (') r'*+ 'o$)2 T!" "//','"$,0 o/ !" #$% &' ! ,!',#$") &#) ,o$)'("r#*-0 !'3!"r2 T!" ,!',#$") *r"#%) !" r",'r,+-# 'o$ 4o$") #$( '$,r"#)" !" #1"r#3" r")'("$," '5"2