Taking the Pulse of Subsea Trees Design towards Deepwater Application

Abstract

The challenges facing the subsea production system are becoming increasingly complex with hydrocarbon production moves into deep and even ultra-deep waters. As the most critical equipments, subsea trees need to be designed synchronously against the increasing technology gaps. This paper highlights the common considerations for subsea trees design, especially the horizontal Xmas tree, towards future deepwater application, and the main contents consists of structure design combined with subsea seal technology and the important thermal design in terms of insulation materials selection and application, numerical simulation. Meanwhile, some suggestions and application cases are also included in this paper.

A Numerical Study of Flow Field and Oil Water Separation in Vertical Deadlegs

“…Grid Independence. A grid independence test was conducted to illustrate the effect of grid system on compute results, which was also used to ensure the accuracy of the numerical simulation and to determine an appropriate grid density [16]. This test was conducted based on a typical inlet velocity of 1m/s, and set the velocity magnitude and water volumetric concentration along the central line of the deadleg as the comparison objects, which were illustrated by figure 2.…”