fabian diaz

Tube skin peak temperature is one of the major parameters in furnaces operation since they determine the life of the tubes and the extent of an operation run. This parameter is very difficult to calculate appropriately in magnitude and location within the furnace and commercial furnace simulators usually fail in its calculation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is the only technique that calculates peak skin temperatures with great precision and accuracy since radiation and convective heat fluxes can be calculated taking into account every singularity of the geometry of the furnace and the burners. In this work is developed a technique to calculate this parameter using CFD commercial code (Ansys Fluent) and an in-house furnace simulator (EcoFursim), results of the simulations are compared with data from different furnaces from Barrancabermeja refinery (Barrancabermeja, Colombia) and good agreement is observed. Refinery furnace is referred in this paper to fired heaters for non rea...

La simulación de una caldera industrial en CFD se realiza, usualmente, por etapas debido al gran tamaño y a los diferentes fenómenos físicos que ocurren dentro del equipo. En este trabajo, la simulación de una caldera industrial de parrilla se realiza en tres etapas, la primera es el circuito de aire primario, la segunda es el circuito de aire secundario y la tercera corresponde a la caldera. La combustión de bagazo de caña es un fenómeno complejo que involucra vaporización de la humedad, devolatilización y combustión del carbón, de forma que para evaluar esos fenómenos las partículas de bagazo fueron modeladas en un marco Euleriano-Lagrangiano. Las simulaciones fueron desarrolladas en el software comercial ANSYS FLUENT y la tasa de devolatilización fue programada en lenguaje C como una función definida por el usuario. Cuando los resultados de las simulaciones se compararon con datos experimentales, se observó una concordancia satisfactoria. Se realizaron simulaciones con modificaci...

Polymer flooding for enhanced oil recovery is increasingly in demand in countries such as Colombia, where ECOPETROL has taken major steps in applying this technique to revitalize mature oil fields. The purpose of injecting polymer into reservoirs is to increase the viscosity of the aqueous phase to enhance the mobility ratio. Several aspects can affect and weaken the performance of a polymer flooding operation, however, most of them can be controlled. One of the most important factors is the degradation of the polymer by shear, which causes a reduction in the aqueous phase viscosity. This study was based on work related to the degradation of HPAM solutions induced by the use of regulator valves to control flow and pressure in multiple zones in the same well or multiple wells connected to the same pump. Several tests were completed in a facility designed and prepared to perform regulator valves testing. The results obtained during the initial phase of the testing were compared to com...