Studies on mechanism of sand removal from crude oil

Numerical simulation and experimental research on sand removal was performed. The sedimentation mechanism of sand particles of various diameters was investigated under different oil/water ratios and oil viscosities. Moreover, commercial CFD software FLUENT was applied to simulate numerically gravitational sedimenttation separation. Through the comparison between simulation and experimental results, a kind of high-efficient sand-removal method was put forward. The work was completed jointly by the Institute of Mechanics, CAS and China National Offshore Oil Corporation during the “tenth-five-year” period.