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Background
Produced water is by far the largest by-product of oil and gas industry and the removal of its
oil content through hydrocyclones or other devices is a crucial environmental issue. In order
to keep a high efficiency for these devices, the circulation of produced water must assure
the lowest shear possible not to reduce the dimension of the dispersed phase.Typhonix AS
conducted studies on centrifugal pumps for produced water which can replace the normally
used screw pumps. These machines proved to apply low shear on the fluid. Furthermore they
demonstrated to promote the coalescence of oil droplets.
Objective:
To study the flow circulation in the pump
diffuser in order to characterize velocity,
pressure and recurrent flow patterns
and identify which design characteristics
influence the growth of oil droplets.
Method:
CFD simulations of the flow through the
diffuser, both single-phase and two-pase.
LDV measurements on the centrifugal pump
rig to characterize the flow and compare it
with numerical results.
Further work: use the results to improve
the diffuser design in order to get higher
coalescence promotion.
PhD Thesis
Waterpower Laboratory
Separation Friendly
Centrifugal Pumps
By Alessandro Nocente
Supervisor: Torbjørn Nielsen
Co-supervisor: Trygve Husveg