Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494

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Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse

Intelligent design and selection of natural gas two-phase separators

Luis F. Ayala H.*, Doruk Alp, Mohamad Al-Timimy
Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 121 Hosler Building, University Park, PA, United States of America

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Proper design of separators for surface production facilities is essential in order to maintain the quality
Received 27 March 2009 and quantity of produced hydrocarbon uids and avoid major operational problems in downstream
Received in revised form equipment. Separators that are not properly sized or built will invariably be involved in operational
3 June 2009
mishaps encountered in natural gas surface operations and processing. This study addresses the basis of
Accepted 30 June 2009
two-phase separator design and selection and explores the applicability of Articial Intelligence tech-
Available online 28 July 2009
niques, such as Articial Neural Networks (ANNs), for the creation of intelligent systems capable of
predicting proper two-phase separator dimensions which can guide their selection. The expert system is
Keywords:
Neural network able to unveil the most accurate mapping among input parameters and output sizing parameters and
Natural gas greatly facilitates identifying which parameters have the most inuence and/or govern separator design
Two-phase separator and selection, while quantifying their relative inuence. The proposed system is robust, fast, dependable,
and unambiguously quanties the relevance and impact that each uid property and process conditions
has on the correct selection of separation devices needed for natural gas processing applications.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Based on uid composition and reservoir conditions, hydro-
carbon (HC) uids may be in gas or liquid phase or both phases may
coexist in the pore space as prescribed by the prevailing thermo-
dynamic equilibrium conditions. In natural gas reservoirs, for
example, initial reservoir conditions are found in the single-phase
region, as indicated by Fig. 1. Whenever reservoir uids are brought
to surface, to conditions of relatively lower pressures and temper-
atures compared to that of reservoir, phase equilibrium shifts to
a new point in the mixture phase envelope (Fig. 1). Heavier
components in the gas phase condense, and in the case of oil ows,
lighter components would abandon the oil phase. Rich natural
gases can yield considerable amounts of condensate at surface
separation conditions, with typical yield values of 50250 bbl/
MMscf for wet gases and 200400 bbl/MMscf for retrograde
natural gases, depending on condensate content and surface
separation conditions. Surface facilities utilize liquidvapor sepa-
rators to collect the readily condensable hydrocarbon phase as the
rst step prior to further processing.
Liquidvapor separators are one of the most common types of
process equipment in the natural gas processing industry (Chin,
2007; Guo et al., 2007; Kidnay and Parrish, 2006; Guo and
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 814 8654053; fax: 1 814 8653248.
E-mail address: ayala@psu.edu (L.F. Ayala H.).
Ghalambor, 2005; GPSA, 2004; Abdel-Aal et al., 2003; Arnold and
Steward, 1999; Campbell, 1994; Manning and Thompson, 1991;
Kumar, 1987). Separation of the condensate and gas phase enables
the independent handling, metering, processing, and marketing of
each phase. Separation vessels provide the incoming natural gas
mixture with necessary conditions of time and space needed to
achieve adequate mechanical separation of phases at the prescribed
thermodynamic operating conditions. Poor separation can result in
high costs, poor quality products, and even damage to downstream
equipment. A successful separation process ensues in higher quality
and quantity of both phases. Therefore, proper design of separators
is essential for getting the maximum yield (thus prot) and meeting
contractual specications for the delivered uids.
No design project begins with detailed engineering computa-
tions right off the start. Design of surface production facilities is not
the exception, and it typically entails an iterative procedure
completed in stages which increase in detail and precisiondas in
the case of most process plant designs. Establishment of a design
basis is followed by a preliminary (quick estimate) design stage
which is usually based on approximate methods to explore several
design options quickly (Peters and Timmerhaus, 1991). At this basic
engineering stage, generation of as many viable solutions as possible
is advantageous to the design process while alternatives are
screened according to rough cost estimates. Typically, computers are
utilized in the solution of equations governing the design. However,
time available for completion of the preliminary design stage limits
the number of alternative designs that could be sought with

1875-5100/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jngse.2009.06.001
 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494
Nomenclature
CD Drag coefcient []
d Vessel diameter [ft]
dp Target droplet diameter [ft]
fA Fraction of cross sectional area []
fH Fraction of vessel height []
g Gravitational acceleration [ft/s2]
GOR Gas oil ratio (scf/bbl)
h Vessel height [ft]
hlc Height of liquid column [ft]
L Vessel length [ft]
q Flow rate at operating conditions [ft3/s]
rS Slenderness ratio []
tR Retention time [s]
economical evaluation as well (Towler and Sinnott, 2008). In this
work, the applicability of advanced intelligence technology is
explored as a robust alternative to successfully undertake prelimi-
nary design calculations where the evaluation of multiple design
solutions is essential. Speed and accuracy that has been achieved
with ANNs in other engineering applications assert ANNs as
a candidate to replace conventional analysis methods at this
preliminary design stage.
In particular, this study explores the applicability of Articial
Neural Networks (ANNs) for the prediction of proper separator
dimensions. Our ultimate goal is to develop an ANN capable of
providing the user with appropriate separator dimensions once the
parameters that govern the design, such as operating pressure, uid
ow rates and densities, are provided as an input. In the last
decades, ANN models have been successfully utilized in several oil
and gas industry applications, where there has been a continued
interest in their application for the study of long-standing problems
(Mohaghegh, 2000). Several expert systems have been presented in
the literature myriad applications in petroleum and natural gas
engineering; a very recent presentation of which has been
compiled by Gharbi and Mansoori (2005). Some other applications
include, for example, the work of Ayala et al. (2007) and Ayala and
Ertekin (2007), where ANN technology was employed for the
analysis of cycling operations in retrograde gas condensate reser-
voirs. Al-Farhan and Ayala (2006) also used articial intelligence
technology for the prediction of the optimal middle stage surface
separation pressure as a function of hydrocarbon composition and
associated surface design parameters. Mann and Ayala (2009)
Critical Point
Liquid
Pressure
Surface
Conditions
2-Phase
5% 10 70 80 90
Temperature
Fig. 1. Phase envelope of a natural gas uid.
85
v Phase velocity [ft/s]
vT Droplet terminal velocity [ft/s]
Greek
r Density at operating conditions [lbm/ft3]
m Viscosity at operating conditions [lbm/ft/s]
Subscripts
d Droplet
g Gas phase
H Horizontal separator
l Liquid (oil) phase
t Total
V Vertical separator
recently developed, tested, and validated a reliable ANN tool
capable of predicting the optimal design of facilities dedicated to
natural gas storage operations. In general, ANNs can prove to
exhibit superior performance to conventional approaches for oil
and gas applications (Mohaghegh, 2000).
2. Articial Neural Networks
An Articial Neural Network (ANN) could be dened as a tool
which takes in a set of input data (stimuli) and transmits it over
a web of neurons that manufacture the response or set of outputs
associated with the current stimuli. In such visualization, ANNs
resemble the actual neuron connections of living organisms which
transmit signals within the body of organisms to induce its func-
tion. Likewise, these tools can be used to learn patterns and make
predictions when particular inputs lead to specic targets. During
this learning process, network structure is properly adjusted, as
illustrated in Fig. 2. ANN tools have been successfully utilized to
recognize patterns, capture otherwise unrecognized inputoutput
relations, and match and lter data where other traditional
methods have not been successful.
As in the case of a brain, before ANNs can make accurate
predictions it has to understand the relation between the input
and the desired output. ANNs learn these relations through the
training process where network is continuously fed with the same
sets of input and target data (covering the extremes of data for
desired ANN function) which allows the network to adjust weights
and biases to match ANN output to the target values. Any input that is
fed to the network and the targets used in the training process
should be pre-processed, which involves data normalization. The
normalization procedure evenly distributes and scales the data to
ensure that data of all the parameters fall within a certain range, such
as [1, 1]. This prevents the parameters with large scales from
Reservoir dominating the network structure and inuencing the output. The
Conditions
Target
Gas
Input Output
ANN
ANN compare Match
Ready
No Match
100
Adjust ANN
Fig. 2. How ANNs learn.
86 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494

qg
Incoming x Weight [w]
f(wP+b) Output [a]
Data [P] + Bias [b]

hME
Fig. 3. How Neurons work.

dV
measure for good training is the magnitude of associated training
errors. Training error is dened as the difference between target and
hVD
output values. There are several training algorithms available which
aim to provide better training for the ANN in shorter periods of time.
The fundamental element of ANNs is the neuron. Neurons could qt
be viewed as black boxes where incoming scalar data is initially
amplied or attenuated based on the weight associated with the
data type (or data origin). Altered incoming data could be further
modied prior to main process in the box by adding a scalar value hli
called bias. This nal form of the data is then transformed
according to a certain mathematical function, called transfer
function, assigned to the box. Transfer functions map neurons to
each other through adjacent layers. Common transfer functions are
the log-sigmoid, hyperbolic tangent sigmoid, and the linear func-
tions. This process is illustrated in Fig. 3.
hlc
Neurons can be arranged to work both in parallel and in series to oil
each other, hence they construct the Articial Neural Network. A
group of neurons working in a parallel arrangement is called ql
a layer. Layers can be arranged in series in an ANN. The number of
neurons in an output layer, which is the last layer of a network, is
typically equal to the number of different types of output desired Fig. 5. Vertical two-phase separator schematics.
because each neuron produces only a single output. Again typically,
but not necessarily, the number of neurons in an input layer, which
is the rst layer of a network, is equal to the number of input Guo and Ghalambor, 2005; GPSA, 2004; Abdel-Aal et al., 2003;
parameters. Generally, there are additional layers between input Arnold and Steward, 1999; Campbell, 1994; Manning and Thomp-
and output layers in an ANN, each called a hidden layer. Usually, son, 1991; Kumar, 1987). For adequate separation, separation vessel
same transfer function is assigned for all the neurons in a layer. dimensions are required to satisfy two restrictions:
Nevertheless, it is fairly common to have neurons with different
transfer functions in the same layer. While number of input 1) Gas Capacity Constraint: Gas ow in the separator should be
parameters and the number of neurons in the output layer are slow enough to let oil droplets return to the oil phase under
typically governed by the problem to be solved, the number and gravity, without being dragged away with the gas phase.
size of all the other layers, including the input layer, are determined 2) Liquid Capacity Constraint: Vessel should provide enough
by the user. Fig. 4 depicts a typical ANN architecture with 2 hidden liquid residence time in order to guarantee adequate mass
layers, 3 input neurons, and 2 output neurons. transfer between the phases (and thus the most efcient sepa-
ration) and enough room for liquid level control capabilities.
3. Separator modeling and design
The most common geometrical congurations available for
separator construction are (1) vertical, as depicted in Fig. 5; and (2)
The essence of separator design relies on the manipulation of
horizontal, as depicted in Fig. 6. Although the basis of design and
ow velocity or uid inertia in order to allow gravity to mechan-
design constraints are the same for both types of separators, calcu-
ically separate the liquid and gas phases. In addition, the separator
lation procedures differ due to orientation of ow in the vessels. The
must allow for sufcient residence time for separation to take place
selection of the horizontal or vertical conguration is usually
and enough space for liquid collection. The nal aim of the design is
to assure this adequate split of oil and gas while using minimum
amount of material for the construction of the vessel. In this section,
qt qg
a brief overview of separation design theory is presented and dis-
cussed while additional details can be found elsewhere (Chin, 2007;

hg
Hidden Layer Hidden Layer
(6 Neurons) (4 Neurons) dH
Input Layer
(3 Neurons) Output Layer
(2 Neurons) hl oil
Input type 1
Output type 1
Input type 2
Output type 2
Input type 3 ql
L

Fig. 4. Structure of a typical ANN of 4 layers. Fig. 6. Horizontal two-phase separator schematics.
 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494 87

Hidden Layer Hidden Layer Table 2

Input parameters and range.
(30 Neurons) (30 Neurons)
Input parameter Unit Min. Max.

o g GOR (gas oil ratio) scf/bbl 1500 8000

Gas ow rate MscfD 5000 30,000
GOR Gas gravity 0.56 1.20
dV Oil gravity 1.00 0.702
qg Pressure psi 200 800
hV
o
dH
g
LG
P Table 3
Targets and range (training sets).

Target (training) Unit Min. Max.

Fig. 7. Proposed ANN architecture. Vertical separator diameter ft 1.78 8.46
Vertical separator height ft 6.89 28.85
Horizontal separator diameter ft 1.19 7.00
a matter of economics. When the two designs fully satisfy the Horizontal separator length ft 4.20 21.20
constraints listed above, the surface area or volume of the vessels can
be compared to determine which one would require less material.
Minimization of surface area or separator volume implies that less and thin nor too wide and short) by ensuring that the slenderness
steel would be needed for construction. ratio for the vessel is found between the typical range of 34.
The basic theory behind separation design relies on a force Slenderness ratio, rS, is dened as:
balance around a liquid droplet that is suspended in a vapor stream
and which tends to fall due to the force of gravity but needs to hV
rS (4)
overcome the dragging force that tends to carry the liquid droplet dV
out of the vessel with the gas phase. This force balance leads to the
For horizontal design, gas velocities can be larger than droplet
following denition for the droplet terminal velocity (see, for
terminal velocity (Svrcek and Monnery, 1993) and vt-values cannot
example, Chin, 2007 and Abdel-Aal et al., 2003):
be used to directly constrain gas ow. In these cases, the design has
s to guarantee sufcient gas residence time for the liquid droplets to
4 g$dp rl  rg be able to travel the distance hg between the top of the vessel and
vT (1)
3 CD rl the liquid interface (see Fig. 6). Incorporating the appropriate
geometrical considerations, the gas capacity constraint for hori-
In vertical design, gas velocities can be directly constrained using
zontal vessels thus becomes:
the vt-terminal velocity as the reference for maximum allowable
gas speed. Since gas occupies the entire cross sectional area of the s
gravity settling section, the diameter of the vessel can be readily 4 fHg qg
dH jgas (5)
related to maximum allowable gas velocity using the equation: p fAg rS $vT
s where fHg and fAg are the fractions of height and cross sectional area
4$qg
dV (2) occupied by the gas phase, respectively, which can be readily related
p$vg to liquid phase wetted angle through geometrical considerations.
Depending on the prescribed liquid level control, values can vary
Equation (2) is the design equation that satises the gas capacity
from completely dry (fHg fAg 1), 50% full (fHg fAg 0.50), to
constraint for vertical vessels. Once separator diameter is deter-
completely full of liquid (fHg fAg 0) but anywhere in between
mined, total vessel height (ht) is calculated adding up individual
values of fHg and fAg are different at any given liquid level. In general,
heights of liquid column, inlet-to-liquid, vapor disengagement and
horizontal vessels are typically designed to operate 50% full of liquid
mist extractor sections. The height of the liquid column is
in order to maximize available area for liquid/gas mass exchange.
computed based on the liquid capacity constraint of the vessel,
In the case of horizontal separators both gas and liquid capacity
given by:
constraints limit the vessel diameter because both liquid and gas
ql $tR 4$ql $tR share the cross sectional area. These geometrical constraints yield
hlc (3) the following liquid capacity constraint equation for horizontal
p$d2V p$d2V
4 vessels:
The vertical design is concluded by ensuring that projected  1
dimensions yield a reasonable structure and shape (neither too tall 4 tR $ql 3
dH jliq (6)
p fAl $rS

Table 1
Input neurons for the proposed ANN.
Table 4
Input parameter Unit Targets and range (testing sets).
Gravity difference, go  gg
Gas oil ratio, GOR scf/bbl Target (testing) Unit Min. Max.
Gas ow rate, qg MscfD Vertical separator diameter ft 2.34 7.00
Oil gravity, go Vertical separator height ft 7.39 19.40
Gas gravity, gg Horizontal separator diameter ft 1.64 5.70
Pressure psi Horizontal separator length ft 5.70 17.12
88 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494

Fig. 8. dV prediction performance training.

Fig. 9. dV prediction performance testing.

 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494
Fig. 10. dV prediction performance cross-plot.
where fAl is the fraction of cross sectional area occupied by
the liquid phase (fAl fAg 1). Since these equations provide the
minimum diameter size required by the associated constraint, the
larger diameter prevails:
h i
dH max dH jgas ; dH jliq
Design is concluded with an iterative procedure in which vessel
dimensions are determined for slenderness ratio values in the
range [34] and the diameter-length couple that gives the smallest
surface area (hence the material) is chosen. For horizontal separa-
tors, the slenderness ratio is dened as:
LH
rS
dH
Fig. 11. hV prediction performance training.
89
4. ANN model for separator design
The results of the Articial Neural Network study for the case of
separator design demonstrated that a feed-forward ANN architec-
ture was adequate for the purpose of this study. The proposed
network is presented in Fig. 7 and it is composed of a two hidden
layers of thirty neurons each. The hyperbolic tangent sigmoid
(tansig), log-sigmoid (logsig), and linear (purelin) functions were
used as the transfer functions among the layers in Fig. 7, respec-
tively. Information on the architecture of proposed ANN is pre-
sented in Table 1. In general, more neurons and layers usually result
in better matching output but at the risk of overtraining or
memorization. In such cases, testing is not successful and the key
point is achieving reasonable prediction performance while
employing the simplest possible architecture. Fig. 7 presents
the best combination of input parameters, hidden layers, and the
number of neurons that this study was able to establish for the
simultaneous prediction of both associated vertical vessel dimen-
sions (dV and hV) and horizontal vessel dimensions (dH and LH).
In the case of separator design, vessel dimensions (dV, hV, dH, LH)
are functions of phase densities, oil and gas ow rates, operating
pressure and temperature, uid properties, geometrical consider-
ations, and droplet size targets. It became clear during our studies
that the best way of presenting this information to the network, in
terms of best learning and predictive performance, was through the
denition of the input neurons listed in Table 1. Among these, for
example, the addition of the input neuron gravity difference, in
(7) addition to the specic gravity of each phase, signicantly improved
network performance. This was to be expected since vessel
dimensions for a given set of conditions tend to decrease as the
density contrast of the uids increases, since gravity separation
becomes more efcient. While density difference prevailed as one of
the most important parameters, the ANN also recognized that actual
values of liquid and gas densities have their own impact on the
design in terms of the quantication of actual gas volume inside the
vessel and liquid retention times, respectively. Input parameters and
associated ranges used for the proposed neural network are given in
(8)
Table 2. While separator operating pressure is considered as a design
90 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494

Fig. 12. hV prediction performance testing.

variable, operating temperature is assumed to be constant at stan- Vessel dimensions for both vertical and horizontal separator
dard conditions (60F). Other typical design parameters are droplet designs are utilized as network targets in accordance with our
diameter (assumed equal to 100 mm, based on customary practice objective. Ranges of calculated output targets are given in Tables 3
described by Arnold and Sikes, 1986) and operating liquid fraction and 4 for training and testing data sets, respectively. Comparing the
for horizontal separators (assumed equal to 50 % full of liquid in this ranges for training and testing data sets reveals that limits of the
work). Gas compressibility factors and gas viscosities are estimated training database demonstrates a good coverage of potential vessel
using the Dranchuk and Abou-Kassem (1975) and Lee et al. (1966) dimensions, which has a positive inuence on the network perfor-
models, respectively. Drag coefcient calculations follow the models mance and reliability.
presented by Arnold and Stewart (1998).
At this point, the previously discussed separator design theory is 5. Results and discussion
implemented to generate a knowledgebase for a range of operating
conditions in order to train and test the ANN. It is important to Training performance of the developed network for the case of
point out that once the ANN is trained and tested successfully using the accurate prediction of vertical separator diameters (dV) is
this knowledgebase, there is no further need to check its predic- presented in Fig. 8. As can be observed from the error plot and
tions with actual solutions as long as solution being sought is for error histogram, errors associated with the training process are
the operating conditions within the range. Yet, at design engineers less than 2% which is typically a good preliminary indicator of
discretion, the range of the knowledgebase can be extended at acceptable performance and learning of the ANN. Actual testing
anytime and consequently the ANN is further trained and tested to
properly account for the new data range.
Each generated input vector is a unique combination of the
input parameters and thus a comprehensive database can be
established. A total of 3125 training and 1024 testing data sets were
generated with the ranges indicated in Table 2. Training and testing
data sets were automatically generated using an in-house separator
design expert based on the equations discussed in the preceding
section. The testing data sets created in the study were chosen at
random and were never shown to the network until the testing
phase was conducted. This a customary step needed for the vali-
dation of ANN architectures in order to procure evidence that the
network did not just memorize information but rather general-
ized it for all other possible input combinations. The MATLAB ANN
toolbox was utilized to train the proposed ANN architecture
(MathWorks, 2005) using the scaled conjugate gradient training
algorithm (trainscg) as the backpropagation technique. Back-
propagation is used for network training and it adjusts weights and
biases of the network based on error performance. Input and target
data for both training and testing are normalized (linearly scaled in
the range [1, 1]) before they are supplied to the ANN. Fig. 13. hV prediction performance cross-plot.
 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494 91

Fig. 14. dH prediction performance training.

performance of the network is shown in Fig. 9, where it is seen
that model predicts test data quite well and associated errors are
within the range 2.5% for data that it has never seen. Fig. 10
displays the cross-plot of targets (actual diameters) versus
outputs (ANN predictions), for both training and testing data sets.
A perfect match requires all of the points to be found on top of the
cross-plot diagonal. Dashed red lines on both sides of the diagonal
indicate the 10% error lines, which are the limits for acceptable
ANN performance. We see that data points are fairly well
distributed along the diagonal or unit-slope line with minimal
scatter. Both training and testing results are quite satisfactory; and
thus, the proposed network is said to fully understand the
prediction of diameter calculations for vertical vessels based on
the input data. The histogram-based analysis of testing errors in
Fig. 8 provides further evidence of the successful performance of
the proposed network. The highest testing error frequency is
found around 0%, with extremely low probabilities of nding
testing errors above 5%.

Fig. 15. dH prediction performance testing.

92 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494
Fig. 16. dH prediction performance cross-plot.
Further evaluation of the ANN capabilities for natural gas sepa-
rator design can be obtain by inspection of Figs. 1119. For the case
of vertical separator height (hV) predictions, Fig. 11 reveals ANN
performance during training. Again, we see that errors are bounded
within the range 2%. Similarly, and more importantly, the analysis
of testing performance in Fig. 12 conrms the same error bounds for
the data sets to which the network had not been previously exposed.
Error histograms demonstrate a very dense concentration of points
around very small error values during training and testing. Cross-
plot of actual versus predicted data in Fig. 13 is a bit more scattered
at the outer end of the unit-slope line when compared to Fig. 10.
Nevertheless, all the data points are near the diagonal and suggest
a very good match and prediction performance.
Horizontal separator diameter (dH) predictions during the ANN
training session are shown in Fig. 14. Percent errors are signicantly
higher (as high as 10% at some instances) compared to the vertical
Fig. 17. LH prediction performance training.
case. Nevertheless, error histogram shows that majority of the
errors are within the 5% range. Test results given in Fig. 15 show
that associated error is again within the range 2% and cross-plot of
the testing data is very well aligned to the unit-slope line (see
Fig. 16). By the same token, Fig. 17 shows the training results for
horizontal separator length (LH). Errors grew beyond 2% but they
are consistently maintained around 5%. Testing errors conrm
this pattern in Fig. 18. Cross-plot given in Fig. 19 indicates that all
the predictions are easily found well within the 10% error limit
while the great majority of the data points are in a good alignment
with the unit-slope line. Horizontal dimension predictions clearly
posed more challenges for the ANN study than the vertical coun-
terpart, but the proposed nal architecture was able to successfully
learn the intricacies of the design. At this point, it is clear that the
developed ANN is able to predict appropriate separator designs for
vertical and horizontal congurations. Since the required dimen-
sions of the vertical and horizontal vessels are simultaneously
calculated, a simple volume computation immediately guides the
selection of one conguration over the other. The design congu-
ration that can perform the uid separation with the least volu-
metric requirement would always be preferred since it requires the
least material for construction. Fast, reliable, and inexpensive
results can be obtained using the proposed approach while still
capturing most important design constraints and without recurring
to detailed calculations.
Once an ANN is in place and has been properly trained, it is
particularly useful to determine the inuence of each input param-
eter on the network performance. Relevancy is an important concept
in the analysis of ANN performance since it can be used for the
identication of the most inuential input parameters of any
problem of interest. This allows sorting out input parameters based
on their level of inuence on network response. In this study, the
method proposed by Belue and Bauer (1995) is used in order to
determine relevancies of each of the input parameters. For the
problem under consideration, the relevancy plot is presented in
Fig. 20, which was generated for all input parameters. It is evident
from this gure that the gravity difference is the major driver of
natural gas separator design, with the greatest impact (w23%) on the
 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494
Fig. 18. LH prediction performance testing.
Fig. 19. LH prediction performance cross-plot.
network performance. Phase gravities and prevailing pressure
ranked in a higher level of importance than the ow rate informa-
tion, although without major contrast in inuence. Other than the
density difference, the remaining input parameters exhibit a similar
inuence on the design of natural gas two-phase separators.
6. Concluding remarks
A feed-forward Articial Neural Network model with an
arrangement of [6 30 30 4] neurons has been successfully developed
for the reliable design and selection of natural gas two-phase sepa-
rators. Error bounds of the proposed model are generally in the range
2% for dimensions of both vertical and horizontal vessels, with
slightly higher prediction errors associated with horizontal design
predictions. Cross-plot analysis indicates that predictions of the
93
Fig. 20. Relevancies of input parameters.
network are well within the acceptable limits and align very well
along the perfect-t unit-slope line. Predictions allow the calculation
of vessel dimensions and the selection of the best geometrical
conguration based on uid phase specic gravities, vessel pressure,
GOR, and gas ow rate. The developed ANN covers the range of
1500 < GOR < 8000 scf/bbl, gas ow rates between 5000 and
30,000 MscfD, gas and condensate gravities ranging between 0.56
1.20 and 0.71, respectively, and vessel operating pressures within
the operational range of 200800 psi. Using the concept of relevancy,
it is corroborated that the uid density contrast is the major driver of
natural gas separation design. In this study, it has been demonstrated
that a simple Articial Neural Network can successfully replace
conventional design strategy of two-phase natural gas separators
during the basic engineering stage of surface production facilities.
Future work should incrementally account for additional complex-
ities and further details in design such as changes in operating
94 L.F. Ayala H. et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 1 (2009) 8494
conditions throughout reservoir life, temperature effects, and
economical assessment of design options for instance. These
proposed changes are ultimately aimed at helping the design engi-
neer optimally explore better separator design alternatives.
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