Research on the pre-film progress of inhibitor in nature gas pipeline

Shanbi Peng
School of Construction Engineering
Southwest Petroleum University
Chengdu, China
254587354@qq.com
Enbin Liu
School of Petroleum Engineering
Southwest Petroleum University
Chengdu, China
sunriselebpsb@163.com

AbstractNatural gas contains a complex mixture of H
2
S, CO
2
,
water, etc. which seriously affects the normal production of
natural gas pipeline. Inhibitor can significantly inhibit the
corrosion rate. Base on the atomized flow of the liquid theory,
this paper studied the atomization process, atomization
concentration and mechanism of protection of the inhibitor in
pipelines, then calculated the time for pre-film, the amount of
inhibitor and the protection distance of inhibitor. Finally, a
pipeline of a numerical example had been shown, which had
practical significance for industrial production.

Keywords- Inhibitor; Pipeline; Pre-film
I. INTRODUCTION
Natural gas contains many corrosion medium such as
H
2
S, CO
2
, water and so on, which seriously affect the normal
production of natural gas pipeline. Inhibitor can significantly
inhibit the corrosion rate. Presently, most of the oil fields use
amine corrosion inhibitor, which can hinder the metal
corrosion by the film formed on the metal surface. There are
three kinds of inhibitor as follows (1) adsorption inhibitor:
low concentration and continuous filling; (2) filming
corrosion inhibitor: used in the way of smearing, good
viscidity; (3) passivation inhibitor: low concentration and
continuous filling. It is necessary to control the important
parameters such as injecting volume, injecting time and so
on. This paper contains original research works on the filling
process of the inhibitor, and simulated the injecting volume
and injecting time, so as to add pragmatic for industrial
production.
II. THE ATOMIZATION PROCESS AND QUALITY OF
INHIBITOR
Under the pressure, the inhibitor is injected into the
nozzle of the natural gas pipeline, and then the inhibitor
atomizated. the effective of the inhibitor protect depends on
the atomization quality. Evaluation indices for the
atomization quality are atomizing angle, atomization
homogeneity, atomization fineness, concentration
distribution and so on. The finer the atomization is, the
better the homogeneity atomization reaches; the larger the
atomizing angle is, the better the protection can be.
The average diameter of the inhibitor after atomization
can be calculated by empirical formula proposed by
K.V.Lakas.
0.34
0.27 0.56
7936.68
13500 1945
f
g
G
V
P
d
P P






=







1
In which:
SMD
d sauter diameter, m;
g
V gas flow rate, m/s;
f
G mass flow of the inhibitor, kg/s;
P the pressure drop of the nozzle, Pa
III. CONCENTRATION DISTRIBUTION OF THE INHIBITOR
The concentration distribution of the inhibitor in the
downstream of the nozzle can be obtained by the diffusion
equation
2
2 2
0
( )
4 0
0
4 2
g
t
V r
r R
f g D x
l
t t
G V
VgrR
C e I
D x D X
+
= 2
In which:
t
D the turbulent diffusivity of the droplet in gas
flow, m
2
/s;
xaxial coordination, the origin located near the
nozzle export, pointing the flow direction, m;
rthe radial coordinate, m;
R
0
the imaginary radius, m;
I
0
(A)the first category zero-order imaginary
variation bessel function.
IV. PRELIMINARY FILMING TIME AND AMOUNT OF THE
INHIBITOR
After the atomization of the inhibitor, a layer of liquid
membrane is formed on the pipe inner surface, which can
block the direct effect of the natural gas and the inner
surface. After a while, a layer of inhibitor film in saturation
state is formed. Due to the washing action of the gas, the
thickness of the inhibitor film is equal to the thickness of
the viscous sub layer.
In order to form the inhibitor film and keep the
thickness, the inhibitor injected by the means of
continuous infiltration and intermittent infiltration. The
2011 International Conference on Computational and Information Sciences
978-0-7695-4501-1/11 $26.00 2011 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICCIS.2011.239
655
preliminary filming amount and time of the inhibitor for
the rough pipe are as follows:
( )
0
0
2
f l
L
l
G M T
V Rx

= =
3
0
2
L l
f l
Rx
T
G M

=

In which:
0
V the preliminary filming amount, m
3
;
0
T the preliminary filming time, h;
f
G the mass flow of the inhibitor, kg/s;
l
M the mass flow of the inhibitor carried by
natural gas, kg/s;
L
the thickness of the inhibitor, 100m;
R the pipe radius, m;
x pipeline length, m
V. EXAMPLE ANALYSES
The diameter of a gas production pipeline is
219.114.2, and its transportation amount is 9010
4
/d,
with a pipeline length L=1.8Km and gas flow rate of
3.8m/s. In the hypothesis, the centrifugal nozzle radius r
0
is
0.45mm, with the density of the inhibitor
L
of
808.9kg/m
3
and the thickness of the inhibitor of 100m

Figure 2 shows that with the increase of the axial
distance, the concentration distribution of the inhibitor in
the radial direction tends to be even, unrelated to the radial
position.
As is shown in figure 3, with the increase of the
axial distance, the concentration distribution of the
inhibitor in the center of the pipeline decreased very fast,
tending to average concentration of the cross section.
Figure 4 shows the relationship between the mass flow
and the axial distance, we can see that with increase of the
axial distance, the preliminary filming time increased; and
with the decrease of the mass flow of the inhibitor, the
preliminary filming time increased.















Table 1 lists the preliminary filming time with different
mass flow of the inhibitor, we can see that with the increase
of the mass flow, the preliminary filming time is shortened.
But the mass flow can not be infinitely increased, because
that the atomization quality will be reduced

Table 1. THE PRELIMINARY FILMING TIME WITH DIFFERENT MASS
FLOW OF THE INHIBITOR
G
L
, kg/s t, h
0.015 3.28
0.020 2.48
0.023 2.14
VI. CONLUSIONS
According to the real status of the pipeline, we can use
the method of continuous infiltration to pre-film the
inhibitor, assisted by intermittent infiltration.
It has certain practical significance for industrial
production that using theoretical method to simulate the
filling process and determining the preliminary filming time
and amount of the inhibitor.

This paper is a project supported by Scientific Research Fund of
Sichuan Provincial Education Department (09ZB097) and Science and
Technology Fund No. 2010XJZ179 of Southwest Petroleum University

REFERENCES
[1]Y.Wenzhi, H.Kuiyuan and W.Qing The Inhibitor.
Beijing: Chemical Engineering Publisher1989.10
[2]Fortenberry Jr., C.L., Grahmann, N.J., Miller, C.D., Son,
A.J., Champion Technologies Inc Analysis of Residual
Corrosion Inhibitors in Oilfield Brines,26607-MS,1993,12-
38tor
[3]Hejian Sun, David Blumer, Mike Swidzinski and Josh
Davis, ConocoPhillips Evaluating Corrosion Inhibitors For
Sour Gas Subsea Pipelines 13281-MS,2009,14-42

656

Figure 1. The Operation Schematic Diagram of The Centrifugal Mechanical Atomizer

+0
0
b0
0
80
90
!00
!!0
!?0
0 0.0 0.! 0.! 0.?
m)
C

:
.
m
?
)
0m
b0m
0m
80m
90m
!00m

Figure 2. The concentration distribution of the inhibitor in the radial direction

657
0
!0
?0
30
+0
0
0 ?00 +00 b00 800 !000 !?00 !+00 !b00 !800
m)
C

:
.
m
?
)
00.0!l_:
00.0?l_:
00.0?3l_:

Figure 3. the concentration distribution of the inhibitor in axial
0
0.
!
!.
?
?.
3
3.
0 00 !000 !00 ?000
m)
t

h
)
00.0!l_:
00.0?l_:
00.0?3l_:

Figure 4. The relationship between the preliminary filming time and the axial distance

658