I would like to know if Joule-Thomson effects in gas condensates have any effects on wax deposition in pipelines and risers producing and transporting them? If yes, what are these effects and how can the flow assurance engineer build them into wax prevention or inhibition designs?
I know this does occur and so does condensation of water vapor and also heavy hydrocarbons. I doubt there is anything you could do to a pipe that would change anything. This can be a problem with natural gas feeding combustion turbines. The gas must often be compressed up to about 40 atm before entering the combustion chamber and condensation can occur, which may disrupt the combustion process and increase emissions (unwanted products of combustion) or make it more difficult or more costly to control emissions. A chemical engineer friend of mine designed a naturally centrifugal system with no moving parts that flings unwanted matter to the outside where it's removed. It has operated for years with no maintenance. Siloxanes are a huge problem with landfill gas systems. It's a mess and gets all over everything. There are several types of equipment used to remove the siloxanes, one of which may work for your wax. It's important to lose as little pressure as possible so that you don't have to pump it up again. It's also important to design a system that has few moving parts and doesn't require frequent or expensive maintenance. I've seen more than one riser that had crud build up where the velocity is low and was clean where the velocity was high just downstream of the 90° bend. If you're interested in calculating the conditions under which wax or condensate may form for a particular composition, I've had to do that for several projects. I've used an Excel spreadsheet a couple of times and more complex calculations (C code) for others. Do you know the composition?
Thanks Dudley. I do not have the composition yet as the experimental facilities are still being set up.
Dear,
JT effect is there, and occurs every time your gas is moving into next point of lower pressure (Gas expansion).
So at the delivery point your fluid will lost some degrees due to JT effect.
and you could have as result to be inside the WAT.
The most important question is to have a correct WAT, and as much as i know for gas condensate, correlations are not very precise.
Joule Thompson effect due to gas expansion across flow restrictions help to cool the fluid and thus will contribute to wax deposition. It can be modelled as heat loss
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