Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com
Abstract
In the last 10 years, there have been a number of studies in modeling of the deposition processes in owlines. Most of these models: (1)
assume empirical or semi-empirical correlations to predict the pressure drop and temperature prole, (2) ignore the radial convection
ow in the layer composed of the two-phase wax and oil (that is the gel layer), and (3) use Ficks law to describe the diusion ux of
species towards the wall by using the chain rule to relate concentration gradient to temperature gradient. In this work, a rigorous math-
ematical model for the prediction of wax deposition in pipelines is presented for laminar ow. The transient deposition of each compo-
nent is calculated from the solution of the coupled momentum, energy and, species balance equations, and a thermodynamic wax
precipitation model at the local level. An enthalpy formulation based on a xed-grid approach is used to approximate the convection
ow in the gel layer. We do not use the chain rule to relate composition gradient to temperature gradient in Ficks law to avoid violating
the laws of irreversible thermodynamics. Our diusion ux expression includes molecular diusion (concentration gradient is driving
force) and thermal diusion (temperature gradient is driving force) with appropriate diusion coecients. This work also includes
the description of the numerical solution of the governing equations. Numerical results and features of wax deposition as well as model
verication with experimental data are presented in a separate paper.
2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Nomenclature
to some 60 have high crystallization temperatures and may wax precipitation from crude oils and gas condensate uids
crystallize even at low concentration in the petroleum uid for local equilibrium calculations [6]. However, despite
mixture. The crystallites from petroleum uids are often much progress, the more complicated problem of wax
referred to as waxes; the temperature at which crystalliza- deposition in non-isothermal owlines is still in an early
tion occurs is referred to as wax-appearance temperature stage of development.
(WAT). There are two main processes that aect the deposition
An understanding of the mechanisms of the wax deposi- of wax in owlines: (1) heat transfer, and (2) species ow.
tion and modeling of the process is likely to be a key step The heat transfer is mainly from conduction and convec-
towards an optimum design and prevention of the tion. The ux of species by convection and diusion is
problem. expected to strongly inuence the deposition. To the best
There has been an extensive eort in the last decade to of our knowledge, the radial convective velocity in the
develop theoretical models for wax deposition calculations. region containing the deposition for the laminar ow has
In recent years, there has been success in the prediction of been neglected in the past [716]. The radial velocity is
R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398 3389
expected to be small in comparison to axial velocity, but its uxes and the study of diusion eects are major goals of
contribution to species ux in the radial direction may be this work.
comparable to radial diusion ux (due to non-uniform This paper is organized as follows. First, a detailed
wax deposition, radial convection develops). One objective description of the mathematical model is presented for
of this work is to include the radial convective ux in the the coupled momentum, energy, and mass balances. We
formulation. then provide the thermodynamics of wax-precipitation
Wax deposition is a moving boundary problem and the model followed by presenting the numerical formulation
numerical solution of the balance equations can be a chal- of the governing equations and the algorithm. The work
lenge. A large number of numerical techniques are avail- is ended with a general summary and concluding remarks
able for the solution of a moving boundary problem. emphasizing that concentration gradient and temperature
There are two main approaches. In the transformed-grid gradient may not be related through a chain rule.
approach, the governing dierential equations and their
boundary conditions are cast into a generalized curvilinear 2. Domain denition and basic assumptions
coordinate system. The equations can then be solved on a
uniform-rectangular grid, which remains xed in space We consider a horizontal pipe of length L and inner
and time. In essence, the moving boundary is immobilized. radius R0 (Fig. 1). A multicomponent uid is injected at
Extra terms in balance equations may be required for one end with a volumetric ow rate Q at temperature,
conservation of mass, momentum, and energy [17]. In the Tin. The pipe wall temperature is set at constant tempera-
xed-grid approach, which is also known as the ture, Ta where Ta < Tin. The outlet pressure is held
enthalpyporosity approach [18], a xed grid is applied constant at p0. We assume single-phase and gel subdomains
directly in real space (that is, the problem domain) and as shown in Fig. 1. The formation of solid wax crystals
the interface conditions are accounted for by the denition creates a gel layer, which consists of a liquid phase and a
of suitable source terms in the governing equations [1820]. nonmoving solid phase [15]. Studies of distillate fuels
The enthalpyporosity approach has been successfully and model petroleum uids reveal that as little as 2%
implemented in many engineering problems that involve of the crystal precipitate is required to gel the uid
a liquid to solid phase change such as freezing of a pure [15,23,24,27]. When the amount of crystallites increases,
liquid in a thermal cavity and melting of a pure metal the gel hardens. The process is called aging of the gel layer.
[18,21,22]. In this work, we adopt this approach for the rst The following assumptions are made in our work:
time in the formulation of wax deposition by treating the
layer with deposition as a pseudo-porous medium. Various (1) Shear dispersion and Brownian diusion are
authors have shown that the crystallization of parans in neglected.
oil leads to the formation of gel with a complex morphol- (2) Gravity is neglected.
ogy. The gelation is due to ocuulation of orthorhombic (3) Diusions (both thermal and molecular) are
wax crystallites that appear in the solution. Observation neglected in the axial direction.
with cross-polarized microscopy has revealed that the (4) Diusion is neglected in the solid phase.
crystallites have structures of platelets that overlap and (5) Solid heat capacity and uid thermal conductivity of
interlock and a network structure of wax crystals are each component are assumed temperature indepen-
formed [15,23,24]. Therefore, the gel behaves as porous dent.
media. In this work the Darcy-type source term is added (6) Laminar ow is assumed.
to the momentum equation to describe the deceleration (7) Multisolid wax precipitation is assumed.
of ow in the gel layer. The energy equation for the multi-
component, two-phase ow is written in terms of the Ta
enthalpy. The relationship between the enthalpy and the
Gel layer
temperature can be described by an equation of state.
To the best of our knowledge, in all the models in the R0
Liquid region
literature the driving force for radial diusion is rst
written in terms of concentration gradient and then
through the chain rule, the temperature gradient is intro-
duced [711,1316,25,26]. In other words, various authors
use the molecular diusion coecients with the driving
force represented by temperature gradient. Thermodynam-
ics of irreversible processes oers a dierent representation r
of diusion with temperature gradient. In our formulation,
we represent the molecular diusion (driving force is z
concentration gradient), and thermal diusion (driving
force is temperature gradient) from thermodynamics of Fig. 1. Computational domain, the geometry of problem is a 2D circular
irreversible processes. Proper representation of diusion coordinate system.
3390 R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398
we nd C = 106 m2 for describing ow in the gel layer as The last expression in Eq. (15), which ignores the axial
we will comment in Hoteit et al. [32]. thermal conduction at the outlet, is based on a pseudo-stea-
dy state assumption. The eective thermal conductivity ke
3.2. Energy balance in Eq. (14) can be calculated from the Maxwell correlation
[33]:
The general form of the energy equation for a single 2k o k s 2S s k o k s
phase, multicomponent mixture can be written as [28]: k eff ko: 16
2k o k s S s k o k s
!
o X n
DP One may use other models in the calculation of the eective
ci H i r e T : rv; 10
ot i1 Dt thermal conductivity of a two-phase mixture [34]. The mo-
lar enthalpy of the oil phase can be calculated from the PR-
where H i is the partial molar enthalpy of component i, and EOS [35]:
DP/Dt is the energetic contribution of the pressure due to
H o T ; p; xo H T ; 0; xo RT Z 1
expansion or compression. The term T is the stress tensor
and T:$v is the energetic contribution of viscous dissipa- T daT aT Z 2:414B
p p ln ;
tion. The term e is the multicomponent energy ux relative 2 2b dT 2 2b Z 2:414B
to xed coordinates; it is dened as [28]: 17
X
n
where Z = pvo/RT is the compressibility factor of the oil
ev ci H i q: 11
i1
phase and H*(T, 0, xo) is the ideal gas enthalpy of liquid
P mixture at zero pressure, which can be calculated from:
The term v ni1 ci H i is the energy ux due to convection. X
n
The term q is given by [28]: H T ; 0; xo xo;i H i T ; 0: 18
i1
X
n
q krT J i H i qx ; 12 In Eq. (18), H i T ; 0 is the ideal gas enthalpy of component
i1
i. Passut and Danner [36] provide correlations for ideal gas
whereP k$T is the energy ux due to conduction and the enthalpy of some 90 substances.
n
term i1 J i H i represents energy transfer due to diusion We use the following expression to calculate the
of species. The term q(x) represents the Dufour or diu- enthalpy of the solid wax:
sion-thermo eect, which is usually negligible. Neglecting X
n
ture variation on heat capacity of component i in the solid The total molar density c is dened by
state, we can write [35]: X
c S j cj : 29
H s;i T ; p H s;i T ; pfi H s;i T fi ; pfi Cps;i T T fi : 20 jo;s
From the denition of molar latent heat of component i The overall composition of component i is related to the
(heat of fusion): phase composition of component i by
X
ki H o;i T fi ; pfi H s;i T fi ; pfi : 21 czi S j cj xj;i ; i 1; . . . ; n: 30
jo;s
Eqs. (19)(21) are combined to obtain
Using Eq. (30) one can write Eq. (28) as
X
n
H s T ; P ; xs xs;i H o;i T fi ; pfi ki Cps;i T T fi : o X
i1 czi r S j cj xj;i vj S j J j;i 0; i 1; . . . ; n:
ot jo;s
22
31
In this work, the terms ki ; H o;i T fi ; pfi ; and Cps,i are as-
sumed constant; ki can be evaluated as the average value The total molar balance from Eq. (31) can be written as
at T and T fi . oc X
r S j cj xj;i vj 0; i 1; . . . ; n: 32
ot jo;s
3.3. Species balance
Eqs. (31) and (32) are subject to the following boundary
The gel layer has structure of platelets that overlap and conditions:
interlock and may contain up to 98% liquid in early time of
deposition [23,24,37]. The gel layer may grow with time. zi zi in at z 0;
Let us consider ow in two-phase in the domain and write J j;i r 0 at r 0; R0 ; 33
the mass balance of species i: ozi
0 at r 0:
o X X or
S j cj;i r: S j cj;i vj;i 0; i 1; . . . ; n; 23
ot jo;s jo;s
3.3.1. Diusion ux
where cj,i and vj,i are the molar density of component i in The molar diusion ux in a vector form can be written
phase j, and the velocity vector for component i in phase as [38]:
j, respectively. The relation between the bulk velocity, vj
of phase j, molar diusive ux, Jj,i, and velocity of compo- J cDM rx DT rT DP rp: 34
nent i in phase j, vj,i is given by M T P
where J, D , D and D are the total diusion ux vector,
S j cj;i vj;i S j cj;i vj S j J j;i ; i 1; . . . ; n: 24 molecular diusion coecient matrix, thermal diusion
coecient vector, and pressure diusion coecient vector,
Substitution of Eq. (24) into Eq. (23) yields
respectively. On the right side, the rst, second, and third
o X X terms represent molecular diusion, thermal diusion,
S j cj xj;i r S j cj xj;i vj S j J j;i 0; i 1; . . . ; n;
ot jo;s jo;w and pressure diusion, respectively. Neglecting the pressure
diusion, the diusion ux of component i, i = 1, . . . , n 1,
25
in phase j is given by
where cj and xj,i are the molar density of phase j and mole
J j cj DM T
j rxj Dj rT : 35
fraction of component i in phase j. The molar density of
phase j and molar density of component i in phase j are re- where Jj = [Jj,i] and $xj = [$xj,i]; DM M
j Dj;i;k ; k 1; . . . ;
lated by T T
n 1 and Dj Dj;i are the molecular diusion coe-
cj;i xj;i cj : 26 cients and the thermal diusion coecients in phase j,
respectively. Firoozabadi et al. [38,39] describe the method-
Note that in each phase ology for calculating molecular and thermal diusion
X
n coecients. Eq. (35) consists of two terms. The rst term
J j;i 0; j o; s: 27 on the right side is known as the Ficks law and the second
i1
term is often referred to as the Soret eect. In a multicom-
By summing Eq. (25) for i = 1, . . . , n and using
P ponent mixture such as a petroleum uid with varying
n
i1 xj;i 1; j o; s, and Eq. (27), the total molar balance molecular sizes and molecular shapes, in addition to diag-
expression is given by onal molecular diusion coecients, cross coecients may
o X X become important [40].
S j cj r S j cj vj 0: 28 To the best of our knowledge, in all of the existing
ot jo;s jo;s models for wax deposition, the diusion ux in a (pseudo)
R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398 3393
" #
binary mixture in the radial direction is written in the fol- X
n
N s;k
lowing form: zi xo;i 1 0; i 1; . . . ; n ns ; 40
knns 1
F
oz1 oz1 oT
J o;1 cDM
o;1;1 cDM
o;1;1 : 36 where fo,i(p,T,xo) is the fugacity of component i in the oil
or oT or
phase with composition xo,i, Ns,i is the number of moles
The concentration gradient in the Ficks law of diusion is
of component i in the wax phase, F is the total number
subject to constant temperature and pressure and thus the
of moles of the wax components.
expression above is not valid. The appropriate form of the
The fugacities of a pure component i in solid and liquid
diusion ux without pressure diusion is given by Eq.
states are related by [33]:
(35).
fs;ipure p; T fo;i
pure
p; T exp Dli ; 41
3.4. Solidliquid equilibria
where Dli lpure pure f f f
o;i ls;i =RT Dhi =RT i DCp i =RT i
There are two types of models for wax precipitation cal- T fi =T 1 DCpi =RT fi ln T fi =T :
culations in petroleum uids; (1) solid solution, and (2) The symbols are dened in the Nomenclature. The
multisolid-phase. The multisolid model can describe the fugacity of pure component i in the liquid state can be
WAT and the amount of precipitation more accurately calculated from the PengRobinson equation of state.
than the solid solution model [41,42]. In this work, we per-
form the solidliquid phase calculations by using the mul- 4. Numerical model
tisolid-phase model by Lira-Galeana et al. [6], where each
precipitated component forms a solid layer, which does The momentum, energy, and species mass balance equa-
not mix with the other solid layers. The model uses a tions and the local wax solidliquid model are coupled and
two-step procedure for the phase-split calculation: solved with initial and boundary conditions to predict the
pressure, temperature, velocity and composition in the gel
(1) Stability analysis. and liquid regions as well as the wax fraction (i.e., volume
(2) Phase-split calculation. fraction or weight fraction). The 2D computational
domain is discretized into a structured grid of rectangular
3.4.1. Stability analysis elements. A nite-volume based method is used for the spa-
This is a preprocessing step to identify which of the com- tial approximations. Dierent temporal, spatial and linear-
ponents are precipitating and which are not. A component ization schemes are implemented to solve the governing
i precipitates at a given temperature and pressure if the fol- equations. The scalar unknowns like the pressure, temper-
lowing condition is satised [33]: ature, enthalpies, densities, mole fractions and saturation
are approximated over the same control volumes while
fi p; T ; z fs;ipure p; T P 0; 37
the velocity is approximated over a dierent control vol-
where fi(p,T,z) and fs;ipure p; T
are the fugacity of compo- ume. The numerical algorithm uses two levels of iterations
nent i with overall composition z, and fugacity of pure so- at each time step. In the inner level, we solve the coupled
lid-component i at pressure p and temperature T, momentum and total mass balance equations to approxi-
respectively. mate the pressure and the velocity eld. In the outer level,
we solve the energy equation and the species balance equa-
3.4.2. Phase-split calculation tions to calculate the temperature and the overall composi-
Suppose the stability-analysis provides the condition tion. Once the overall composition, temperature, and
that ns components of the n-component mixture (i.e., the pressure are known, we apply the phase-equilibria model
components (n ns + 1), . . . ,n) precipitate. These compo- to calculate the oil and wax compositions and the wax sat-
nents, therefore, fulll Eq. (37). uration in the gel layer.
The governing equations for the wax precipitation are Here, we provide the basic numerical methods used to
given by the equilibrium and the material balance equa- solve our system of equations.
tions. For every precipitating component i, the equilibrium
and material balance equations are, respectively, given by 4.1. Solution of the momentum equation
fo;i p; T ; xo fs;ipure p; T ; i n ns 1; . . . ; n; 38
The momentum equation is solved by using the SIM-
and " # PLER method of Patankar [43]. In this method, a stag-
X
n
N s;k N s;i gered or a displaced grid for the velocity components is
zi xo;i 1 0; i n ns 1; . . . ; n: used. The velocity components are calculated for the points
knns 1
F F
that lie on the faces of the control volumes and the pressure
39 at the main grid points (see Fig. 3). For presentational con-
The material balance equations for the non-precipitating venience, the general discretization of axial and radial
components are momentum equations (combined Eqs. (1) and (5), and
3394 R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398
4.3. Solution of the species balance equations 7. Normalize the oil mole fraction xo,i.
8. Check if the convergence criterion kxo xold
o k < TOL is
Neglecting the velocity and diusion in the solid phase satised. If not, set xold
o xo and repeat steps 28.
and using Eq. (31), the species balance can be written as
o The computational speed of each SSI iteration is quite
czi r cvo zi r S o J o;i r S s cs xs;i vo ; fast but generally it requires more iterations than the NR
ot
method. In the NR algorithm, we dene the residual func-
i 1; . . . ; n: 49
tion gi from (see Eq. (38)),
The nite-volume scheme is also used for the spatial dis- gi xo fo;i p; T ; xo fs;i p; T 0; i n ns 1; . . . ; n:
cretization of the species balance equations. The convec-
tion term in the left-hand side of Eq. (49) is treated 50
implicitly in time with a rst-order upwinding scheme. The composition of the precipitating components is then
The terms on the right-hand side are calculated explicitly. computed by solving:
JDxo G; 51
4.4. Solution of the phase-equilibria model
where
The stability analysis can be readily performed by using
ogi
the PR-EOS and the expression of the fugacity of the wax J ; Dxo xi inns 1;...;n ; and G
oxo;j i;jnns 1;...;n
phase given in Eq. (41). The phase-split calculation can be
performed eciently by using the successive-substitution- gi inns 1;...;n :
iteration (SSI) or the NR methods. Here, we provide the
algorithms for the phase-split calculation by both methods. Note that the size of the linear system is equal to the num-
The governing system has (n + ns) equations given by ber of precipitating components. The mole fractions of the
Eqs. (38)(40) and (n + ns) unknowns, which are the mole oil phase for the precipitating components are then up-
fraction of the oil phase (xo,i; i = 1, . . . , n) and the number dated from
of mole of the precipitated wax components (Ns,i;
xo;i xold
o;i Dxo;i ; i n ns 1; . . . ; n: 52
j = (n ns + 1), . . . , n).
The main steps of the SSI algorithm are as follows: The NR algorithm is similar to SSI algorithm described
above and is implemented by replacing the update of the
1. Guess an initial oil mole fraction xold o . If no information composition of the precipitating components in Eq. (52)
is available, take the oil mole fraction to be the same as by step 3 in the SSI algorithm. The other steps are exactly
the feed mole fraction (i.e., xold
o z). the same.
2. Calculate the fugacity fo;i p; T ; xold
o from the PR-EOS. In all our calculations, even very close to phase
3. Update the oil mole fraction of the precipitating compo- boundaries, the SSI method performed very well. Unlike
nents from (see Eq. (38)): vapor-liquid equilibria calculations, where close to phase
fs;i p; T boundaries the SSI algorithm becomes inecient, there
xo;i xold
o;i ; i n ns 1; . . . ; n: was no convergence problem with the SSI algorithm in
fo;i p; T ; xold
o
the entire saturation range in wax precipitation
4. Dene Ns from calculations.
X
n
N s;j
Ns :
jnns 1
F 5. General algorithm
Ns can be calculated by summing Eq. (39) for The main steps of the algorithm for predicting the wax
i = (n ns + 1), . . . ,n, that is, deposition in pipelines are the following:
Zs X o
Ns ; Initialize the uid and pipe parameters.
1 Xo
P P Iterate over the time step (outer loop).
where X o ninns 1 xo;i and Z s ninns 1 zi . 1. Update the diusion coecients and the uid
5. Use Eq. (39) to calculate the number of moles of the pre- viscosity.
cipitating components 2. Iterate until convergence (inner loop).
N s;i zi xo;i 1 N s ; i n ns 1; . . . ; n:
2.1 Solve the momentum and the total mass balance
6. Use Eq. (40) to calculate the oil mole fractions of the equations to approximate the pressure and
non-precipitating components velocity eld.
zi 2.2 Solve the energy equation to calculate the
xo;i ; i 1; . . . ; n ns :
1 Ns temperature.
3396 R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398
2.3 Solve the species balance equations to calculate gel layer, the source term increases gradually with a
the overall composition. CarmanKoseny-type function as the solid saturation
2.4 Set cold = c, where c is the overall density. increases. The velocity eld is inversely proportional
2.5 Apply the phase-equilibria model to calculate to source function. The increase in the source term
phase compositions, saturation, and oil, wax leads to a decrease in the velocity eld. The energy
and overall densities. equation is written in terms of the liquid and solid
2.6 Check the convergence criterion enthalpies.
kcold ck < TOL. If no convergence, repeat
steps 2.12.6. A detailed numerical algorithm to solve the mathemati-
Repeat until the assigned time is reached. cal model is also provided. The momentum equation cou-
pled with the total mass balance equation is solved by the
The uid viscosity is a function of temperature, pressure SIMPLER method to approximate the pressure and veloc-
and composition. It is calculated from the correlation of ity eld. The energy equation is discretized by a nite vol-
Lohrentz et al. [45]. The diusion coecients and the vis- ume scheme and linearized by the NR method. The liquid
cosity are updated outside the inner loop for their weak enthalpy is related to temperature using the PR-EOS. A
dependency on the temperature and pressure variation dur- robust algorithm for solidliquid equilibria is presented.
ing the convergence process of the inner loop. The algorithm uses the SSI method or the NR method.
With the NR method, the size of the linear system is the
6. Summary and concluding remarks number of precipitating components which makes the algo-
rithm very ecient.
A mathematical model for wax deposition in pipelines
for a multicomponent uid is presented. The model couples
the momentum, energy and species balance equations and Acknowledgements
a multisolid-wax precipitation model. There are two main
features that characterize our model: The funding for this work was provided by the member
companies of the Reservoir Engineering Research Institute
1. We include molecular diusion and thermal diusion (RERI). We thank Daniel Rosner and Alana Leahy-Dios
in our formulation. Both aect the ux of species of Yale University for reading the paper and their
towards the pipe wall by diusion. The driving force comments.
for molecular diusion is the concentration gradient.
The driving force for thermal diusion is temperature Appendix A
gradient. These two gradients may not be proportional
in the gel layer. The temperature gradient is expected The energy balance equation (Eq. (46)), in cylindrical
to be high close to the pipe wall. The concentration coordinates, is written as
gradient, because of phase change, is expected to be !
high close to the interface of the single liquid phase o X o 1 o
S j cj H j J z J r 0; A:1
region and the gel layer. Furthermore the temperature ot jo;s oz r or
gradient close to the wall may reach a pseudo steady
state quickly and stay large close to the wall. This where
may not be true for the concentration gradients. All
these aspects may lead to incorrect results by the com- oT
J z S o co H o vo;z k eff and
monly accepted use of the chain rule to replace con- oz
centration gradient by temperature gradient in the
oT
Ficks law. In Hoteit et al. [32], the numerical results J r r S o co H o vo;r k eff :
or
will demonstrate the importance of the use of the
proper diusion ux expression and the need for con- Let P be a control volume with edges e, w, n and s, and
sistency in diusion ux expression from irreversible neighboring control volumes E, W, N, and S. Fig. A1 illus-
thermodynamics. With consistent formulation the trates the ve point grid cluster at P. For the sake of sim-
model is predictive. plicity, we suppose that the domain is uniformly discretized
2. An enthalpyporosity approach is used to account for with space steps Dz and Dr along the z- and r-directions,
the ow deceleration in the gel layer where it is mod- respectively (Fig. A1).
eled as a pseudo-porous medium. A Darcy-type Integrating Eq. (A.1) over the control volume P, we get
source term is added to the momentum equations. the semi-discretized equation:
This source term is a function of the porosity (oil sat-
!
uration) in the gel layer. In the single-phase liquid o X
region, this function is set to zero and the velocity S j cj H j DzDr J e J w J n J s 0: A:2
ot jo;s
is calculated from the momentum equation. In the P
R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398 3397
J n Fe n H o;n Dn T N T P ; J s Fe s H o;s Ds T P T S ;
References
where
( [1] D. Shock, J.D. Sudburg, J.J. Crockett, Studies of the mechanism of
Fe nb S o co vo;z nb Dr paran deposition and its control, J. Pet. Tech. 7 (9) (1955) 2330.
for nb w; e; and [2] R.M. Jorda, Paran deposition and prevention in oil wells, J. Pet.
Dnb k eff nb Dr
Dz Tech. 237 (1966) 16051612.
( [3] C. Narvaez, A.A. Ferrer, S.A. Corpoven, Prevention of paran well
Fe nb rrnbP S o co vo;z nb Dz plugging by plunger-lift use, SPE 21640 presented at the SPE
for nb n; s:
Dnb rrnbP k eff nb Dr
Dz production operation symposium, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 79
April, 1991.
Dierent schemes, such as upstream, hybrid, and power law [4] J. Svetgo, Paran problems can be resolved with chemicals, Oil Gas
can be used to dene the variables at the interfaces between J. 82 (9) (1984) 7982.
[5] B.J. Eastund, K.J. Schmitt, D.L. Meek, D.C. Anderson, G. Grisham,
the blocks [43]. By using the upstream scheme, the semi- New system stops paran buildup, Pet. Eng. Int. 61 (1) (1989) 4651.
discretized Eq. (A.2) is written in the general form: [6] C. Lira-Galeana, A. Firoozabadi, J.M. Prausnitz, Thermodynamics
! of wax precipitation in petroleum mixtures, AIChE J. 42 (1) (1996)
o X X X
239248.
S j cj H j DzDr F nb H o;nb Dnb T nb ;
ot jo;s nb nb
[7] P.A. Bern, V.R. Withers, J.R. Cairns, Wax deposition in crude oil
P pipelines, Proc. Euro. Oshore Petro. Conf. Exhib. Paper EUR 206.
A:3 October 2124, London, England, 1980.
[8] E.D. Burger, T.K. Perkins, J.H. Striegler, Studies of wax deposition
The counter nb in the above equation refers to the center in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, J. Pet. Tech. 33 (6) (1981) 10751086.
and edge points P, e, w, n and s. The coecient Fnb and [9] A. Majeed, B. Bringedal, S. Overa, Model calculates wax deposition
Dnb are dened as for N. Sea oils, Oil Gas J. 88 (25) (1990) 6369.
[10] T.S. Brown, V.G. Niesen, D.D. Erickson, Measurement and predic-
F e max Fe e ; 0; F w max Fe w ; 0; F n max Fe n ; 0; tion of the kinetics of paran deposition, J. Pet. Tech. 47 (4) (1995)
X 328329.
F s max Fe s ; 0; FP F nb and [11] J.A. Svendsen, Mathematical modeling of wax deposition in oil
nbn;w;e;s pipeline systems, AIChE J. 39 (8) (1993) 13771388.
X
DP Dnb : [12] A.A. Hamouda, J.M. Ravnoy, Prediction of wax deposition in
pipelines and eld experience on the inuence of wax on drag-reducer
nbn;w;e;s
performance, in: Oshore Tech. Conf., OTC 7060 24th Annual OTC
in Houston, Texas, May 47, 1992.
As presented in the main text, there are two iterative pro- [13] F.S. Ribero, P.R.S. Mends, S.L. Braga, Obstruction of pipelines due
cedures in the algorithm. In the inner loop, we solve the to paran deposition during the ow of the crude oil, Int. J. Heat
nonlinear system by coupling the momentum, energy and Mass Transfer 40 (18) (1997) 43194328.
species balance equations. In the outer loop, we iterate [14] J.L. Creek, B. Matzain, M. Apte, M. Volk, E. Delle Case, H. Lund,
Mechanisms for wax deposition, AIChE Spring National Meeting,
on the time step. Let k and n denote the inner and outer
Houston, TX, March 1999.
loops, respectively. By using the backward-Euler scheme [15] P. Singh, H.S. Fogler, R. Venkatsean, N. Nagarajan, Formation and
to discretized the time operator in semi-discretized Eq. aging of incipient thin lm waxoil gels, AIChE J. 46 (5) (2000) 1059
(A.3), the spatial and temporal discretized form of Eq. 1074.
3398 R. Banki et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 33873398
[16] E. Ramirez-Jaramillo, C. Lira-Galeana, O. Manero, Modeling wax [30] P.C. Carman, Fluid ow through granular beds, Trans. Inst. Chem.
deposition in pipelines, Petroleum Sci. Technol. 22 (78) (2004) 821 Eng. 15a (1937) 150166.
861. [31] R.B. Bird, W.E. Stewart, E.N. Lightfoot, Transport Phenomena,
[17] M. Lacroix, V.R. Voller, Finite dierence solutions of solidication second ed., John Wiley, 2002.
phase change problems: transformed versus xed grids, Numer. Heat [32] H. Hoteit, R. Banki, A. Firoozabadi, Deposition and aging in ow
Mass Transfer Part B Fundamentals 17 (1) (1990) 2541. lines from irreversible thermodynamics, submitted for publication.
[18] A.D. Brent, V.R. Voller, K.J. Reid, Enthalpy porosity technique for [33] H.S. Carslaw, J.C. Jaeger, Conduction of Heat in Solids, second ed.,
modeling convectiondiusion phase-change: application to the Oxford University Press, New York, 1959.
melting of pure metal, Numer. Heat Transfer 13 (3) (1988) 297318. [34] S. Whitaker, The Method of Volume Averaging, Kluwer Academic,
[19] K. Fukui, K. Meada, Numerical simulation of dynamic layer Springer, Boston, 1999.
solidication for a eutectic binary system, J. Chem. Eng. Jpn. 31 (3) [35] A. Firoozabadi, Thermodynamics of Hydrocarbon Reservoirs,
(1998) 445450. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999.
[20] M. Mbaye, E. Bilgen, Phase change process by natural convection [36] C.A. Passut, R.P. Danner, Heat capacity and entropy, Ind. Eng.
diusion in rectangular enclosures, Heat Mass Transfer 37 (1) (2001) Chem. Process Des. Develop. 11 (4) (1972) 543.
3542. [37] P. Singh, H.S. Fogler, N. Nagarajan, Prediction of the wax content of
[21] V.R. Voller, C. Prakash, A xed grid numerical modeling method- the incipient waxoil gel in a owloop: An application of the
ology for convectiondiusion mushy region phase-change problems, controlled-stress rheometer, J. Rheol. 43 (6) (1999) 14371459.
J. Heat Mass Transfer 30 (18) (1987) 17091719. [38] K. Ghorayeb, A. Firoozabadi, Molecular pressure and thermal
[22] C.H.S. Lira, Solidication in square section, Theoria 10 (2001) 4756. diusion in nonideal multicomponent mixtures, AIChE J. 46 (5)
[23] G.A. Holder, J. Winkler, Wax crystallization from distillate fuels: I. (2000) 883891.
cloud and pour phenomena exhibited by solutions of binary n- [39] A. Firoozabadi, K. Ghorayeb, K. Shukla, Theoretical model of
paran mixtures, J. Inst. Petrol. 51 (499) (1965) 228235. thermal diusion factors in multicomponent mixtures, AIChE J. 46
[24] G.A. Holder, J. Winkler, Wax crystallization from distillate fuels. (5) (2000) 892900.
Part II: mechanisms of pour depression, J. Inst. Petrol. 51 (499) (1965) [40] A. Leahy-Dios, M.M. Bou-Ali, J.K. Platten, A. Firoozabadi,
235243. Measurements of molecular and thermal diusion coecients in
[25] A.A. Hamouda, S. Davidsen, An approach for simulation of paran ternary mixtures, J. Chem. Phys. 122 (23) (2005) 112.
deposition in pipelines as a function of ow characteristics with [41] D. Nichita, L. Goual, A. Firoozabadi, Wax precipitation in gas
reference to Tesside oil pipeline, in: SPE 28966-MS, Proc. SPE Int. condensate systems, SPE Prod. Facilit. 16 (4) (2001) 250259.
Symp. on Oileld Chemistry, San Antonio, TX, February 1417, 1995. [42] R.A. Heidemann, J. Madsen, E.H. Stenby, S.I. Andersen, Wax
[26] G.M. Elphingston, K.L. Greenhill, J.J.C. Hsu, Modeling of multi- precipitation modeled with many mixed solid phases, AIChE J. 51 (1)
phase wax deposition, J. Energy Res. Tech. 121 (2) (1999) 8185. (2005) 298308.
[27] P. Singh, H.S. Fogler, R. Venkatesan, Morphological evolution of [43] S.V. Patankar, Numerical Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow, Hemisphere
thick wax deposits during aging, AIChE J. 47 (1) (2001) 618. Publishing Corp., Washington, 1980.
[28] W.M. Deen, Analysis of Transport Phenomena, Oxford University [44] H.K. Versteeg, W. Malalasekera, An Introduction to Computational
Press, New York, 1998. Fluid Dynamics, Pearson Prentice Hall, Essex, England, 1995.
[29] D.E. Rosner, Transport Processes in Chemically Reacting Flow [45] J. Lohrentz, B. Bray, R. Clark, Calculating viscosities of reservoir
Systems, Courier Dover Publications, 2000. uids from their compositions, J. Pet. Tech. 16 (1964) 11711176.