Influence of operating temperatures on long-duration wax deposition in flow lines
Title
Influence of operating temperatures on long-duration wax deposition in flow lines
Subject
Wax deposition
Mechanism
Molecular diffusion
Thermal driving force
Description
Operating temperatures have major impacts on wax deposition. Although significant research efforts have been expended on this topic, no satisfactory agreement has been achieved in the available literature. In the present work, we conducted cold-flow flow-loop wax deposition experiments using a waxy condensate with 9.5% wax content to investigate the influence of operating temperatures on wax deposition. To achieve a closer representation of field operation, we varied the oil temperature while keeping the initial wall temperature constant and conducted the tests up to 72 h. It was observed that the deposit forms more slowly but contains higher wax content as the difference between oil temperature and wall temperature increases, and these trends hold at both 48 and 72 h. Moreover, we calculated the diffusive mass flux at different operating conditions using the prevailing theory of molecular diffusion and found that the predicted trends are opposite to experimental observations. These results, along with findings from recent publications, collectively suggest that the long-standing modeling approach based on molecular diffusion is insufficient to completely describe wax deposition phenomenon, and that wax deposit morphology and other deposition mechanisms deserve further attention to close this knowledge gap.
183
Publisher
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
Date
2019-12-01
Contributor
Janamatti, Arjun
Lu, Yingda
Ravichandran, Sriram
Sarica, Cem
Daraboina, Nagu
Type
Journal Article
Identifier
5FEVZ3VA
0920-4105
10.1016/j.petrol.2019.106373
Collection
Citation
“Influence of operating temperatures on long-duration wax deposition in flow lines,” Lamar University Midstream Center Research, accessed May 8, 2024, https://lumc.omeka.net/items/show/308.