An Optimisation Framework to Reduce the Risk of Hydrate Blockages in Flowlines

Abstract

This dissertation explores the possibility that Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) may be used in conjunction with common meta-heuristic optimisation techniques as a tool to assess the risk of hydrate blockage during restart operations in gas-dominated flowlines featuring accumulated water zones, without the usage of chemical inhibition and thermal control. The results show that a simulation-based optimisation framework can be used to provide a flowline operator with an operational window for hydrate blockage-free restarts.