EFFECTS IN FREE WATER KNOCKOUT SEPARATOR CAUSED BY FPSO MOTIONS IN OCEAN WAVES

摘要

In offshore operations, wind, waves and currents cause motions on Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platforms that can induce effects on equipment at the topside processing plant, such as on an oilfield separator. The purpose of this work is to propose a procedure to evaluate the quality of the emulsion separated in a horizontal Free Water Knockout separator (FWKO) under the influence of the FPSO motions in ocean waves. In this paper, a software named WAMIT was used to obtain FPSO motions. Time series of roll and pitch motions are calculated considering regular and irregular waves and through these results the emulsion quality indicator is obtained to evaluate the separator performance. The main contribution from the present study is the estimation of the quality of the emulsion separated on the FWKO, which can contribute to improve the operational criteria for three-phase separators commonly used in offshore applications.