Dimensionamiento de separadores

Cómo se calcula

• Souders–Brown: V_terminal = K·√((ρ_liquid − ρ_gas)/ρ_gas), the velocity above which droplets are re-entrained.
• Gas density comes from the PVT module at separator pressure and temperature, not from an assumed value.
• Liquid section volume = (oil rate × oil retention + water rate × water retention), converted to actual barrels at the vessel.
• The vessel is sized to satisfy whichever of the two constraints binds, and the length-to-diameter ratio is reported so an unreasonable geometry is obvious.

Dónde deja de ser cierto

Souders–Brown is a droplet-settling criterion with everything it does not model — inlet device, mist extractor, foam, slugging, wave action on the interface — buried in a single K factor. Foaming crude routinely needs three to four times the nominal retention time, and there is no way to know that without a bottle test on the actual fluid. Nothing here addresses slug catching, level control response, sand handling or the emulsion band that governs a three-phase vessel in practice. This sizes a vessel for a steady flow; a real separator spends its life in transients.