November 17, 2016
17 November 2016. Last week the 7th UWA Flow Assurance Industry Workshop was held at the Australian Resources Research Centre, ARRC in Kensington. The event was attended by over 20 Industry Participants and organised by the Flow Assurance Research Group within the Fluid Science and Resources Division (and Training Centre for LNG Futures) at UWA.
PhD students presented recent developments of their research which are described by three key themes being,
- Predicting Hydrate Blockages
- Hydrate Growth in Gas Dominant Systems
- Advanced Chemical Controls
First held in 2013 those who have attended the workshops regularly have tracked progress and research of the Flow Assurance group which includes six academics, two post doctorate fellows and fourteen PhD students. The group is now the largest Flow Assurance Research Group in the Asia-Pacific region and one of the largest in the world. A key aspect of the group’s research is on challenges and conditions unique to gas fields in Western Australia.
PhD students Bruce Norris & Thomas Charlton who are developing Flow Assurance Software within the group.
New Software for Flow Assurance Engineers
Considerable interest was given to software developed as an OLGA plug-in for hydrate deposition in gas dominant systems which is a key feature of Western Australian Oil & Gas developments. OLGA is a standard industry software package used by flow assurance engineers to assess the risk of hydrate formation and blockage in pipeline systems. The software developed by the research group is based on the application of fundamental scientific principles and verified through empirical experiments in the group’s significant laboratory facilities. The OLGA plug-in is currently available to engineers for testing and registration of interest can be made through Dr. Zach Aman (zachary.aman@uwa.edu.au).
HYFAST is a transient flowline simulation tool with hydrate functionality. The software combines hydrate deposition, fluid mechanic, viscosity and heat transfer models to assess the risk of hydrate formation and deposition throughout production pipelines. Furthermore Monte-Carlo simulations are incorporated to give probabilistic results allowing engineers to make risk based assessments of their engineering pipeline design and operations. HyFAST 3 is currently planned for Beta release early next year.
Presentation material from the workshop can be found here.
The next Flow Assurance Workshop is planned for the first half of 2017– please register your interest with Dr. Zach Aman (zachary.aman@uwa.edu.au).
