Comparison of Different Natural Gas Flow Rates in Pipelines and their Effect on Odorant Concentration
Abstract
The article deals with the problem of adding and spreading an odorant in a high-pressure pipeline. Briefly describes the basic properties of odorants added to natural gas. Furthermore, it mainly focuses on the odorant concentration in natural gas at different natural gas flow rates. By using the ANSYS CFX software, simulations were carried out on the pipeline models representing the selected section of the distribution network at the maximum, minimum and zero flow of natural gas.
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Introduction
Natural gas is a mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons. Among its main components is mainly methane, which makes up approximately 93% to 99% of its content. In addition, natural gas also contains propane, butane and other substances. Natural gas serves mainly as a natural fuel for heating and DHW, further for cooking, or in the form of CNG as a fuel for cars. Among its advantages are good controllability and distribution, there is also no need to provide storage space for the customer.
Natural gas is lighter than air, it is flammable, colorless, tasteless and has no natural smell. Although it is not a poisonous gas, it is non-breathable. It is the absence of odor that appears to be problematic from the safety point of view. For this reason, natural gas odorization is necessary. The importance of odorization lies in the early warning of people in the event of an accidental gas leak either from a gas pipeline or from a delivery point. Thanks to early detection of a natural gas leak, an explosion, fire or suffocation can be prevented.
Conclusion
Describing the behavior of an odorant in natural gas is quite complicated, since in addition to physical processes, it is also affected by chemical processes such as adsorption, absorption and oxidation. As a result of these processes, the odorant concentration in natural gas may decrease after a certain period of time. In this article, the focus was on the actual flow of the mixture of odorant and natural gas without the influence of chemical processes. The simulations confirmed the assumption that after the vaporization of the odorant in the pipe, an unchanging homogeneous mixture is formed, regardless of the gas flow rate in the pipeline.