Oil and Gas Applications

Slug Catcher

Slug catchers are designed to stratify “slug flow”.

The ratio of gas to liquid of the oil extracted from a well, will change over its lifespan and flow rates will vary during different operation regimes (e.g. cleaning). Redesigning or replacing a slug catcher can cost up to tens of millions of dollars. Therefore it’s important for slug catchers to be effective throughout the lifetime of the well and at all operating conditions. If it isn’t, the gas-side flow can be disturbed if slug catcher over fills.

Here, STAR-CD was used to simulate the multiphase, transient characteristics of the slug catcher at different flow rates and gas/liquid ratios. This insight provides an invaluable validation of the slug catcher design, and in which flow conditions it can operate.

Risers VIV

Vortex Induced Vibrations (VIV) of risers is a key design issue. VIV can produce high levels of fatigue on the riser, leading to failure. Two studies are presented here, the first is an unsteady simulation using Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) in order to obtain a detailed understanding of the wake formations.

The second is a Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) coupling a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) STAR-CD calculation with a structures code. The simulation allowed the engineers to understand at which flow rates the risers will touch.