To reduce the cost of oil exploitation, it is necessary to promote the development of cyclones for oil-water separation due to the increase of the water content in produced fluids. However, there are some limitations and disadvantages for the conventional separation device including bulky settling tanks and hydrocyclones. In this paper, a new axial inlet separator with two reverse flow outlets and a downstream flow outlet is introduced. In addition, an experimental system was designed and fabricated to investigate the effects of inlet flow rate, oil fraction, and a controlled split ratio on separation performance. The separator maintains high separation efficiency within the experimental range, namely water flow rate (4–7 m3/h), and oil fraction (1%–10%). Furthermore, the results show that a higher water flow rate and oil fraction will affect the separation efficiency. The change of a pressure drop in the separator was analyzed as well. Moreover, the controlled split ratio is a serious operating parameter, and a larger controlled split ratio is conducive to the separation performance.
The exploitation of most oil fields has entered the middle and late stages and the proportion of water in the mixture extracted from the oil fields at this stage is very high, even reaching 80%-90%. In order to lower the cost of exploitation and make the oil field more sustainable, oil and water separation needs to be carried out downhole. The downhole space is small, and the separation device should be small and efficient. Therefore, this paper studies the axial flow oil-water separator that can be used for downhole oil-water separation. Study the influence of swirler structural parameters on the velocity field in the separator, and find structural parameters that are more beneficial to oil-water separation. The results show that increasing the outlet angle of the guide vane, the twisted diameter of the blade and the number of blades can all increase the tangential velocity of the flow field in the separation section, and generate centrifugal force to promote the aggregation of light fluid towards the center.
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