In long hydrocarbon transportation lines, when the slope of the pipe continuously changes, the generation of long slugs is likely to occur. In many cases the presence of long slugs in the line is undesirable, because it requires the installation of a larger separator at pipe outlet. In other cases, also the presence of long gas bubbles may represent an issue, for instance when a multiphase pump is installed at an intermediate position along the pipeline. In these applications in order to damp also the larger fluctuations an efficient flow conditioner can be installed.
In the present paper, the generation of long slugs in a hydrocarbon transportation line is determined with an available software tool. The results obtained are critically examined and are used as input to a newly developed module describing the dynamic behaviour of a flow conditioner. Different configurations of the flow conditioner have been considered and an attempt to identify the best solution is performed. The final result is likely to be affected by the actual operating conditions of the pipeline, but an attempt to generalize the results obtained is also presented. In principle, the approach which has been followed allows a better design of the transportation/pumping system and in particular of the flow conditioner.
