摘要：This work is a thermo-fluid numerical case study to investigate the size and performance of a system that eliminates needs for insulating, heating and inhibiting chemically the deposition of wax in subsea tie-in flowlines. For short, we call this type of systems “Cold Flow”. The particular system analyzed in this study consists of a reactor unit at the inlet to the flowline, where the thermal solubility of the wax-creating molecules is reduced by cooling. Subsequently, solid wax is deposited in the reactor piping and wax free crude is entering the flowline. The reactor is regenerated periodically. The reactor-pipeline system was modelled using a commercial flowline simulator, with transient, thermal, multiphase and deposition capabilities. The basic layout used was a transportation pipeline of 8 km and 6.69 in ID with a mass flow rate of 17.51 kg/s, a water cut (WC) of zero and an inlet temperature of 70°C. The wax appearance temperature (cloud point) of the crude is 22°C and the seabed temperature is 4°C. Three types of reactors have been simulated: a non-insulated pipe section, a passive cooler with a bundle of parallel pipes and an active cooler. Sensitivity analyses have been performed for all three cases varying the external convective coefficient, the reactor pipeline diameter and the WC. For a non-insulated pipeline section cooler, the required length is of the same order of magnitude as the main flowline, implying that such a solution is impractical for short flowline distances or when a compact deployment is desired. For the passive cooler case, the required length was half of that in the previous case;thus it is still significant. For the active cooler reactor, the required cooling duty was 2.2 MW. In all three cases, the pipe-flow dynamics were analyzed, and the pigging arrangement complexity has been qualitatively addressed. However, the detailed design falls out of the scope of this study.

摘要：This paper reports the outcome of a study investigating four electrical heat-tracing strategies that can be employed to avoid wax deposition in subsea flowlines transporting untreated crude oil from subsea wells to a host installation. The strategies, described in the paper, are distinct by the configuration of deploying the heat tracing along the pipe and by the activation schedule (continuous or alternating heating cycles). The study demonstrates quantitatively that the electrical power required for maintaining wax-free flow depends strongly on the employed strategy. The complex thermo-hydraulic flow was modeled using a commercial Dynamic Multiphase Flow Simulator with wax deposition option and thermal insulation as an input parameter. In conclusion, the paper ranks the strategies according to their computed energy efficiency, thus providing quantitative benchmarks for preliminary wax control assessment.