Pressure drop simulator of a pipeline

Sara Lucía Bolaños Cruz

0000156025
María Camila Ureña Sandoval
0000156333

Index
Page

1. General information………………………………………… 1
2. Sections of the simulator……………………………………
2.1 General information about the pipeline (oil and gas)….. 2
2.2 Calculations of the Pressure drop………………………. 4
 General information
The purpose of this simulator is calculate the pressure drop of a pipeline, in order to to do this, it took into
account mixing rules for gases and liquids, after that the proper method to calculate the viscosity and the
density for each type of fluid and for the mixture.
This simulator present two types of pipelines: oil and gas pipelines in which the pressure drop was calcu-
lated for both. For each type of pipeline, it has five components. In the case of the oil pipeline, the compo-
nents are water, 2-propanol, undecane, hexane and propylbenzene and for the gas pipeline are water vapor,
methane, ethane, propane and ethylene. Also, there are 10 different pipe material which are commercial
steel, galvanized iron, cast iron, asphalted cast iron, PVC, concrete, ductil iron, stainlesss steel, brass and
copper. Besides that, it is showed two type of accesories, elbows and valves. For the first one, it is the re-
gular 90° and 45° flanged and regular 45° threaded, long radius 90° and 45° threaded and flanged respecti-
vely.
 Sections of the simulator
The simulator is divided in two sheets, one for the oil pipelines and the other for the gas pipelines.

Figure 1. Sheets for the oil pipelines and the gas pipelines

Each sheets contains two important sections, the general information about the pipeline (oil and gas) and the
calculations for the pressure drop.

Figure 2. General vision for the first section of the simulator

1. General information about the pipeline (oil and gas)

In this section it shows all the properties of each component (liquids and gases) required for calculations,
molecular weight, critical parameters, acentric factor, melting and boiling temperature, some parameters of
the method used for calculations, gas constant and gravity. The last properties have their own units accor-
ding to the method and the result of the unit that was needed. Also, there is the tables where the user put the
values for the data input, the composition of the mixture, the quantity of accesories and the type of pipe ma-
 Figure 3. Data input for the simulator

In the figure 3, there the especific data that the user set. It was used methods that allowed low pressures and
temperatures, so there is a range for those paramater for liquids and gases, for the liquids the range of tem-
peratura is between 178,7 and 342 Kelvin and the máximum Pressure is 1000psi and for the gases the range
of temperature is between 280 and 340 kelvin and the maximum pressure is 25 psi. The user will set the
value and the unit of the parameters showed in the figure 3, for the temperature and pressure the value have
to be in the range previously mentioned and for the others data input there is no limit. In the case of the
units for the data, there is four types for the temperature and six for the rest, for the units of each one, the
user have to set the next references:
⇒ For the temperature, the user can set: K, C, R or F for kelvin, Celsius, Rankine and Fahrenheit respec-
tively.
⇒ For the Pressure, the user can set: Pa, atm, bar, mmHg, psi or torr for pascal, atmosphere, bar, milime-
ters of mercury, pounds per square inch and torr respectively
⇒ For the Flow, the user can set: m3/s, gal/min, L/s, ft3/s, L/h or m3/h
⇒ For the length and the height, the user can set: m, km, mi, ft, in or cm
⇒ For the diameter, the user can set: m, mm, in, ft, cm or dm
⇒ For the pump power, the user can set: W, KW, KJ/h, MW, hp or J/h (for the oil pipelines)

Figure 4. Compositions for the components in the mixture.

In the figure 4, the user put the compositions for each components, for the oil and gas pipelines, in the mix-
ture, it is allowed to put values between 0,0 and 1,0 for each component.
 Figure 5. Accesories for the pipelines.
The figure 5 shows the accesories for the pipeline, there are the reference of the accesory, the meaning of
those are: . The user can set minimum 10 of it and maximum 100.

Figure 6. Pipe material and number of pumps

The figure 6 present the pipe material and the number of pumps, (number of compressor for the gas pipeli-
ne), for both type of pipelines there are 10 types of pipelines which are: commercial steel, galvanized iron,
cast iron, asphalted cast iron, PVC, concrete, ductil iron, stainlesss steel, brass and copper. The user will set
the reference of each one, which are: CS, GI, CI, ACI, PVC, C, DI, SS, B and C respectively. And for the
number of pumps or compressors (liquids and gases) the user can set the quanti-

Figure 7. Pressure drop of the system

Finally, there is the table for the result of the pressure drop of the system.
2. Calculations for the pressure drop
This section present four parts, for the gas and oil pipelines, the first one is the unit convertions to the inter-
national system and a table where the conditions of the system are in this past units. The second part is the
calculations of the denisty for the pure components and for the mixture, the third part is the calculations of
the viscosity for the pure components and for the mixture. Finally, the last part is the calculation for the ge-
neral balance in order to obtaind the pressure drop of the system.