Mixing

• Mixing is a basic unit operation in chemical and hydrocarbon processing
• Yet it is very complex and there are many parameters affecting “good mixing”
• Selection of the right vessel geometry, type and related internals (shafts, baffles, coils, etc.)
• Operating condition, selection of feed location, impeller speed, scale up
• Blending, reacting and suspending of multi-component and multi-phase material
• Optimizing yield, reduce power input and process time

• Detailed results offer better understanding of mixing in single and multiphase flows (including heat and mass transfer)
• Perform blending, mixing and residence time calculations
• Optimize vessel geometry and select the right internals, sparger, dip tube and feed location, impeller speed
• Calculate forces on impellers
• Perform steady state or dynamic stress and thermal analysis

Particulate Flows

• Create more final products through particulate formation
• Control particle size and thus final product quality
• Design of catalytic particulate (controlling particle attrition)
• Design of efficient particle separation, classification and collection equipment
• Fines capture and removal
• Particle entrainment (environmental concerns)
• Fluidization and fluidized bed reactors
• Gasification of biomass and coal particles

• Gas-solid hydrodynamics that provides insight into particle residence time, particle concentration, erosion, and separation
• Heat and mass transfer studies involving homogenous and heterogeneous reactions
• Effect of internals, including short-circuiting, flow distribution
• Design and optimization of separators, filters, and other solid handling devices
• Novel reactor design and scale up studies

Sloshing Separator Tank Design

• Increased requirements in overboard water discharge
• Continued interest in designing smaller and more efficient separator (size and weight concerns)
• Increase range of operability
• Account for wave induced motion of FPSO and offshore platforms

• Estimate the hydrodynamic forces caused by sloshing in 6 degrees of freedom
• Evaluate damping and performance of internals such as baffles and coalescers
• Optimize the shape and location of inlets and outlets, and performance of any upstream gas –separators
• Design for fatigue and structural stresses on vessel (pressure vessel codes), the supports and the internals

Liquid-Liquid Separator Tank Design

• Increased need for highly polished discharged products
• Design for performance, weight, operating cost, reliability across a range throughput
• Complex flows including coalescence, and breakup, multi-phases
• Structural integrity and reliability

• Account of multiphase flow and its behavior in different parts of the separator
• Include effect of particle size distribution, coalescence and breakup using population balance  
• Optimize design and placement of internals including baffles, pores and packed sections, and size and location of inlets and outlets
• Provide insight for design of separator sections including sizing, pressure drop analysis and overall performance

Hydrocyclones

• Design separators to operate at wider cut ranges
• De-oiling water and dewatering oil at much higher rates
• Performance highly sensitive to
  • Geometrical shape and vortex core stability
  • Concentrations and droplet size

• Design inlet configuration and geometry for high angular velocity
• Evaluate separation efficiency for different oil to water and water to oil mixtures
• Optimize placement of vortex finder
• Develop multi-stage or collection of separators

Cyclones

• Increased sand and particulate in many production lines
• Separator design for possible downhole application
• Continuous need for improvement in collection efficiency and increase throughput
• Wide range of applicability and the associated need to design separators to operate for a broad range of particle sizes
• Scale up and/or connecting in a series

• Optimize inlet design to reduce erosion, increase efficiency and find the range of device’s usability
• Geometry and design optimization for various particle loading in 2 phase and 3 phase applications
• Relevant to many applications and any separator shapes, accounting for
  • particles mass, diameter, loading,
  • flow characteristics, pressure drop,
  • welding and structural stress, fabrication, erosion
  • performance in stages or in an assembly

Valves, Chocks, Regulators

• Design products that work reliably at harsh environments and for complex applications
• Concerns about, erosion, cavitation, throughput, leakage, pressure drop, dynamic response, flow uniformity
• Thermal and structural stresses
• Controls and electronic devices, sensors sometimes used with these devices
• Manufacturing processes and cost

• Applicable to design, analysis,  production and operation of these types of devices
• Ability to engineer the entire system using full range of multi-physics capabilities
• Understand structural and thermal stresses to increase reliability and safety
• Predict erosion spots and design to reduce its impact
• Design to minimize cavitation
• Improve pressure drop and the range of the equipment operability
• Accelerate design by performing parametric and design optimization

Heat Exchangers

• Heat exchanger efficiency
• Avoid fouling, maldistribution
• Sizing and type selection
• Thermal and structural design
• Fabrication and manufacturing practices

• Design to code using ASME pressure vessel tools and analysis
• Retrofit exciting devices for process improvement and efficiency
• Look at flow and heat transfer to design around dead or hot spots
• Design tubes, baffles and heat exchangers geometry to meet overall process objectives

Induced Gas Flotation (IGF) System

• Major design challenge because of high level of separation in a single cell vertical column induced gas floatation (IGF) system
• Tightened regulations and heightened concerns about produced water has resulted in requirements to purify water to less than 20 parts per million of total oil content
• Develop and inject fine gas bubbles (100 to 500 microns)  into the vessel with contaminated water.
• Save weight and space on offshore platforms.
• Generally time consuming and expensive to perform conventional physical testing

• Simulate existing standard eductors used in gas flotation devices  to understand why they do not work for this purpose
• Help design experiments to validate the concerns
• Design new gas distributor and perform detailed studies to observe their effectiveness
• Account of multiphase flow and its behavior in different part of the IGF
• Reduce prototyping and product development by better understanding of problem areas
• Sample client case:  New injector and baffling system created well distributed gas bubbles and eliminated undesired recirculation zones

Combustion Systems: Flares

• Control flame shape and flare performance for different fuel and wind velocity
• Avoid back mixing and flame blow out
• Design flare support system and placement
• Reduce maintenance cost

• Optimize flare design, shape and burner internals
• Compare performance of different arrangements and best placement
• Perform radiation and heat transfer studies from the flame
• Learn about thermal and structural stresses

Burners/Combustors

• Burner performance
• Back mixing and burner design
• Pollution and NOx reduction
• Fatigue and creep from thermal stresses
• Flame shape, instability and interaction

• Burner design and performance for various fuels
• Help in developing low and ultra-low NOx burners
• Predict temperature and NOx, with varying fuel, load and swirl
• Predict thermal loads and stresses for different designs
• Burner spacing, orientation and resulting thermal performance of the system

Erosion in a Pipe-Reduction

• Piping changes are necessary
• Erosion in elbow and/or reduction areas can lead to material depletion and leaks
• An estimate of life for given piping and evaluation of extend of wear are required
• Erosion can accelerate after pitting occurs

• Erosion impact can be calculated as a function of
  • Angle of impingement
  • Impact velocity
  • Particle diameter
  • Particle mass
  • Collision frequency between particles and solid walls
  • Material type (FEA) modelling can find erosion rates for field conditions for equipment lifetime
• Eroded material is removed leading to better material thickness predictions

Erosion

• Higher flow rates, increased solid concentration in eroding equipment
• Substantial costly maintenance and shutdown costs
• Quite common in many aspects  of oil and gas processing

• Can find erosion rates for field conditions for equipment lifetime
• Optimization of production, operation, inspection and maintenance
• Maximum erosion in complex flows and geometries can be predicted to within a factor of 2-3

Erosion in Filters/Screens

• Many operations include sand particles
• Screens and other filtration devices routinely are subjected to erosion
• Use filters to separate particles of different size

• Design characteristics of the screen and filters
• Observe build up of larger particles and effectiveness of the screen design
• Gain better understanding of particle build up and particle accumulation
• Predict erosion and schedule appropriate operation and maintenance