Tese: Fundamental Study of Wax Deposition Under Real Flow Conditions
Aluno(a) : Felipe Pereira FlemingOrientador(a): Luis Fernando Azevedo, Jérôme Pauly, Jean-Luc Daridon, Angela Nieckele
Área de Concentração: Termociências
Data: 30/04/2018
Link para tese/dissertação: http://doi.org/10.17771/PUCRio.acad.34612
Resumo: Since the early 1980’s, efforts have been directed towards modeling the complex wax deposition phenomenon. Over the years, the critical evaluation of the wax deposition mechanisms proposed initially through a solid physical background start to make room to flexible codes that could be tuned to different experiment scenarios. In an attempt to investigate the phenomenon in a fundamental way, the current work proposed a research strategy that would evaluate every single part of the complex wax deposition model under well-controlled optimal conditions. To achieve such a goal, a new strategy to evaluate solid-liquid thermodynamic models was developed. Results showed that the model used was robust enough to precisely describe the solid-liquid phase behavior of asymmetric model mixtures at both ordinary and high pressures, as well as to describe the behavior of complex mixture like Diesel fuel samples. To assure the solid physical basis of the models being employed in this work, the thermal conductivity measurement of heavy n-alkanes in both liquid and solid phases was carried out and reported for the first time in the literature. At last, a drift flux solid-liquid CFD model was proposed. Coupled with a thermodynamic model to supply the model with phase equilibria and properties data, the model was used to investigate the experimental results available in the literature. The wax deposition mechanism evaluated was based on the viscosity increase due to the appearance of solids. The results showed that although a qualitative agreement between the model and experimental results were obtained, the model underestimated the thickness of the deposit. On the other hand, the thermal conductivity of the deposit matched the recently available experimental data on the thermal conductivity of such a deposit measured under flowing conditions. This fact strengthens the presented conclusions that wax deposition is not a single mechanism phenomenon after all.