Design and Optimization of an Improved Small-Scale Liquefaction Process for the Natural Gas Pressure-Reducing Station in Pipelines
Publication: Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 8, Issue 4
Abstract
A small-scale liquefaction process without any extra energy consumption was proposed to liquefy a part of natural gas in the pressure-reducing station. A heat exchanger network was integrated with two turboexpander-driven compressors to achieve higher performance of the natural gas liquefaction process in a pressure-reducing station. On the basis of the process simulation, the effects of the feed gas pressure () and the final and intermediate expansion pressures ( and ) on system performance have been investigated to determine the optimal design conditions for the proposed system. The results showed that the liquefaction rate (LR) and the exergy utilization rate (EUR) can reach their maximal values of 17.8 and 28.2%, respectively, at the optimal condition, where , , and . The optimized LR and EUR have been increased by 41.2 and 43.8% compared with the corresponding values from the literature.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), (No. 51306137). The authors would like to thank NSFC for their sponsorship.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 8 • Issue 4 • November 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 24, 2016
Accepted: Feb 3, 2017
Published online: Apr 26, 2017
Discussion open until: Sep 26, 2017
Published in print: Nov 1, 2017
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