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Simple Dew Point Control HYSYS v10
Simple Dew Point Control HYSYS v10
Basis
A gas plant is processing 100 MMscfd (dry basis) to produce a spec pipeline gas as well as a pipeline
raw mix liquid product (Y Grade). The following are known conditions for the feedstock and
specifications for the products:
The composition of the feed gas is shown in the following Component Mol%
table. N2 0.357
The gas enters the plant at 400 psia & 120°F. CO2 0.194
The gas is nearly saturated with water at the inlet C1 80.980
conditions, 48 lb water per MMscf dry gas. C2 13.238
The produced pipeline gas should have a gross heating C3 3.438
value between 905 to 1050 Btu/scf1 & a hydrocarbon dew i‐C4 0.431
point no higher than 15°F. n‐C4 0.742
The produced pipeline gas should be delivered to the i‐C5 0.199
pipeline at 1000 psia and no higher than 120°F. n‐C5 0.156
The produced liquids shall be exported via pipeline & n‐C6 0.163
stabilized to have a TVP (true vapor pressure) @ 100°F no n‐C7 0.065
greater than 103 psia. n‐C8 0.026
n‐C9 0.010
1 If the gross heating value spec cannot be achieved set the chilled separator to the lowest reasonable
The first step is to add a set of pure chemical species to represent the gas & water phases. With
Component Lists highlighted click on the Add button. From the list of pure components pick: H2O,
Nitrogen, CO2, Methane, Ethane, Propane, i‐Butane, n‐Butane, i‐Pentane, n‐Pentane, n‐Hexane,
n‐Heptane, n‐Octane, & n‐Nonane.
It would be a good idea to save this file. Click the File tab & select Save As. Choose an appropriate
name & location.
Set up & Solve the Flowsheet
Gas Chilling & Separation
When you activate the Simulation & you’ll see a blank flowsheet. We will want to create a dry feed
stream, add the appropriate amount of water, & attach the “wet” feed to an LNG Exchanger. The
outlet will be attached to a flash separator.
We want to do the same thing for the
water portion of the feed represented
by the stream Feed Water. Double‐
click on the Feed Water stream to
open up the entry forms for this
stream. Enter 4,800 lb/day in the
Mass Flow box (to represent the 48
lb/MMscf water content). Enter the
pressure but do not enter the
temperature.
Note that for the set of units currently
in use HYSYS automatically replaces
the mass rate with the equivalent
amount in lb/hr.
1 A Mixer is an isenthalpic operation, so the enthalpy for Feed Water (and hence its temperature & quality)
For now we’ll use trial‐and‐error to
determine an appropriate
temperature for the cold separator.
Note that if we specify the
temperature of Chilled Gas as 9.5°F
we get a cricondentherm of Cold
Vapor of just over 15°F.
Now that we’ve met the dew point
spec we can determine if we’ve met
the heating value spec. We can
determine this from additional
properties calculated for Cold
Vapor. Double‐click on Cold Vapor
& select Properties under the
Worksheet in the left‐hand column.
Notice that an HHV has been
calculated as 446.000 Btu/lb.mole. Is
this within the acceptable range?
Since the units are different than
those in the spec (950 – 1050
Btu/scf) we have to do a unit
conversion. Instead, let’s reset the
units used for reporting the results &
come back to this.
Setting the Units Used by HYSYS
The preference for this example is to use U.S. Customary units typically
used in the gas processing industry: temperature in °F, pressure in psia,
molar flow in MMscf/day, heating values in Btu/scf, liquid flow in
gal/min, & mass flow in lb/hr. The default that was in place when this
simulation was started was pretty close. But let’s do better.
Under the Home tab there is a section for Units that show the current set
being used & a button to change options within a unit set. For this
problem the default is a set called Refining‐US1 (for new files the starting
set is dependent on what was previously used on the particular computer
being used). To control the actual set being used let’s create a new one which we will call Gas
In the upper section we can set the units used for various properties in the simulation. We can see
that most units used are very reasonable. For example, temperature is in °F, actual liquid volume
flow as USGPM, & pressure is in psia. (Great! We don’t have to do anything for this.).
Now that we’ve changed the units on
heating value we can go back to the
properties for Cold Vapor to see if
we’ve made the HHV (higher heating
value) spec. Now the value is clearly
reported as 1175 Btu/scf & we see
that it is too high. This will require
more heavy hydrocarbons be
removed. But before we focus on this
let’s add additional processing to
stabilize the liquid formed (since this
will involve recycling back some
evolved gas).
Liquid Stabilization
Before change conditions to lean out the gas let’s determine if the produced liquid will make the
TVP spec of 103 psia. Double‐click on Cold Liquid & select Properties under the Worksheet heading
in the left‐hand column. At the bottom of the list there is an item for True VP at 37.8 C [psia]. The
value is 654.9 psia, much higher than our spec. We can look at the composition to see the problem –
it has 16% methane. This is much too high to try to have in a raw NGL mix.
We can process the high‐pressure liquid in a lower
pressure stripping column to remove these light ends. Let’s
add two more units:
A Control Valve, VLV‐001
A Reboiled Absorber, Stabilizer.
1 Engineering and Operating Guide for DOWTHERM SR‐1 and DOWTHERM 4000 Inhibited Ethylene Glycol‐based
to 55 wt%) the normal practice is to operate in the higher concentration range; if excess water comes in with
the gas then the higher concentrations actually get better freeze protection, not worse.
Propane Refrigeration Loop
The next detail we can is a refrigeration loop to be able to cool
the feed & recycle gases to DPC Separator. Add the following
equipment to the flowsheet:
A Compressor, C3 Compressor
A Cooler, C3 Condenser.
A Control Valve, C3 Valve.
Let’s create the streams for the refrigeration loop starting at
the Chiller. Double‐click on Chiller. Create new inlet & outlet
streams Refrig Liquid & Refrig Vapor, respectively. Make
sure that these streams are associated with the Cold side.
Specify a zero pressure drop. Under the Worksheet tab specify the conditions for the outlet stream
Refrig Vapor (1 vapor fraction & ‐40°F).
Next let’s connect the cold liquid to the
let‐down valve. Double‐click on C3
Valve. Set the Outlet as Refrig Liquid.
Create a new stream Condensed Liquid
as the Inlet. Select the Worksheet tab; set
the temperature of Condensed Liquid to
120°F & the Vapour / Phase Fraction to 0
(i.e., saturated liquid). Do not specify the
pressure drop across the valve – this will
be determined automatically when the
high pressure (for condensation) and
low pressure (for vaporization) are
determined.
Double‐click on C3 Compressor. Select Refrig Vapor as the Inlet & create HP Vapor as the Outlet;
create W‐C3 Compressor as the Energy stream. Normally we would want to specify the outlet
pressure, but we’re going to let HYSYS use the condenser’s pressure for this.
Ethylene Glycol Regeneration
The initial flowsheet assumes that 83 wt% ethylene glycol (EG) can be made available to the
process. In an actual process this EG is not a fresh feed, but rather it is recirculated after the water
picked up in the DPC Separator is stripped out. We can add the following major operations to
regenerate the EG:
a stripping column with a reboiler & partial condenser
a cross‐exchanger to recover heat from the stripped EG
a pump to bring the lean EG up to the injection pressure
a recycle operation.