THERMODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF THE EFFICIENCY OF AIR COOLERS IN A PETROLEUM GAS COMPRESSOR INSTALLATION

摘要

Air coolers (ACs), the basis of cooling systems for modular turbocompressor plants (TCPs), are used extensively in the oil and gas industry. The operating characteristics in various section of the TCP (Fig. 1) are given in Table 1. The AC efficiency can be increased and the metal content can be decreased by intensifying the heat transfer by the finned tubes and bundles of such tubes in various AC designs as well as by employing up-to-date methods to analyze and design cooling systems developed on this basis. The system design method is one of the main methods of improving engineering products, including cooling systems based on ACs. In that method, the main design characteristics of the product being designed are chosen on the basis of analysis of its efficiency as an element of the system implementing a certain target function. Aviation-engine-powered modular TCPs used for gas-lift of oil, collection, and transfer of petroleum gas with a molar mass of 23-27 kg/kmole or more, are installations for primary gas processing. When a multi-component hydrocarbon mixture at a pressure of 5.45-12 MPa is cooled from 430-470 to 303-313 K, a considerable amount of unstable condensate is formed and trapped by the TCP separation system.