19 Jun, 2018
Gas, Compressible Flow
- Accurate for both low and high velocity gas flow systems.
- Solves the conservation equations and an equation of state ensuring an accurate solution
- Auto-detection of choked flow conditions.
Toll free: +1 888 711 3051 Worldwide: +44 28 7127 9227 Login
Features
FluidFlow uses a calculation procedure that solves the conservation equations together with an equation of state for small pressure loss increments. This means FluidFlow obtains a much more rigorous and accurate solution reflective of actual plant performance. Available equations of state include: Benedict-Webb-Rubin, Peng-Robinson, Lee Kesler.
-
Comprehensive Fluid and Equipment Databases
Read More
Read Less
-
Automatic Equipment Sizing Technology
Read More
Read Less
-
Heat Transfer Functionality Included
Read More
Read Less
-
Dynamic Analysis
Read More
Read Less
Comprehensive databases of over 1200 fluids and over 800 equipment components included as standard. Databases are used extensively in FluidFlow in order to reduce the volume of data entry.
- New fluids (including petroleum fractions), fluid mixtures and components can be quickly and easily added.
- Databases that describe the performance and limits of fluid equipment items
- Library of pipe materials, insulation materials and soil types for buried pipe calculations.
- Database of manufacturers, costs, and user-defined areas of application.
Powerful Automatic Equipment Sizing technology included. FluidFlow will propose the most economical pipe size based on physical property data, capital equipment cost and energy costs.
- Automatically size relief valves and bursting disks to ISO and API standards.
- Pumps can be automatically sized based on either a design flow rate or design pressure rise across the system.
- Automatically size pipes or ducts based on any of the following three methods; 1) Economic Velocity, 2) By Velocity and 3) By Pressure Gradient.
FluidFlow includes heat transfer functionality on all modules. Engineers can study heat transfer effects at heat exchangers, pipes and junctions. FluidFlow can model shell and tube exchangers, plate exchangers, coils and autoclaves.
Choose from a range of heat transfer options:
- Buried pipe calculations.
- Pipe heat loss/gain calculation.
- Fixed heat transfer rate.
- Fixed temperature change.
- Ignore heat loss/gain.
Scripting allows the user to perform dynamic analysis on a model. These time-dependent simulations allow investigation into tank fill/drain times, system pressure as demands vary, control philosophies, and more.
Scripting can be used to perform a wide range of dynamic simulations including:
- Analyse system pressure as demands vary.
- Investigate system control philosophies.
- Evaluate valve performance for variable speed pumps.
- Flare stack depressurisation.
- Optimise pump and system performance.
- Analyse scale build-up in systems and study the effect on flow rate.
Applications
Design
- Solve complex gas/vapor flow systems including gas mixtures.
- Ensure accurate designs for both low and high velocity flow systems.
- Achieve an accurate solution reflective of actual plant performance and take account of the Joule-Thomson coefficient.
Analyse
- Ensure accurate gas flow system design by employing specific gas calculation procedures that solves the conservation equations together with an equation of state for small pressure loss increments.
- Consider physical property changes such as pressure, temperature, density, velocity etc as gas flows throughout the piping network.
- Automatically detect choked flow conditions.
Size
- Model gas regulators using either the ISA (Standardized Method) or Universal (Traditional Method) Gas Sizing Equations.
- Size safety relief valves to API RP 520 Part 1 or ISO 4126-1.
- Consider different pipe and duct geometry configurations including cylindrical, rectangular/square and annulus.
Communicate
- Fully customisable reports allow for effective communication to colleagues, clients and peer review.
- Customise flowsheet to visually communicate key results and design information.
- Develop a clear and transparent design audit trail.
Example Systems
1. Superheated steam relief valve auto-sizing
Here is an example of sizing a safety pressure relief valve to API Standards for a superheated steam system.
The required capacity in this case was 49,200 kg/h with a relieving temperature of 400oC and set pressure of 36.7 barg. When using the API sizing method, FluidFlow automatically suggests the next closest standard size orifice plate, in this case Standard Size “N”.
2. Compressed Air:
This is an example of a compressed air distribution system featuring three compressors and over 1,300 M of distribution pipework serving 25 demand points. Compressed air systems can be evaluated allowing you to ensure the required pressures and flow rates are achieved and maintained at the demand points. Line velocities and sizes are easily evaluated as well as fluctuating system demand conditions.
3. Gas Chart Results:
For gas flow within a pipe, the pressure and temperature conditions continuously change. This means that the gas physical properties of density, viscosity, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, sonic velocity, etc., change with pipe length.
The curve plot opposite clearly shows the change in gas density as the gas flows along a pipework segment. This underlines the importance of using the correct and appropriate calculation method. It is therefore clear that liquid pressure loss correlations are unsuitable for gas systems as there is considerable margin for error.
The FluidFlow Gas module uses specific gas correlations together with an equation of state to ensure the highest level of accuracy
Articles to read
26 Jun, 2018
A Study of Choked Flow in Gas Piping Systems
Start Your
Free 14-Day Trial
Get full feature access to our software, available for 14 days from installation.
Start your free trial