Srinivas Swaroop Kolla, Ph.D., a research associate at the University of Tulsa, presented a seminar Friday, March 8th at OU. He spoke about the design and performance of gas-liquid cylindrical cyclone compact separators.
Abstract: Compact separation technology has continuously improved significantly in recent years, due to its applications in a variety of industries, such as Oil & Gas, Chemical, Environmental, and Aerospace. The conventional separators that are based on gravity, are bulky, heavy and expensive, which are being replaced by compact separators that have smaller foot-print, higher productivity and are less expensive to procure and operate. Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC©) separator is one such compact separator that is simple and easy to install and operate with more than 6800 applications including subsea. The presentation covers various aspects of design modifications of GLCC separators and quantifying its performance under the limiting conditions using control strategies. Details of experimental research conducted to investigate the two undesirable phenomena, namely, Liquid Carry-Over and Gas Carry-Under are presented. The Structural integrity analysis of the GLCC inlet section is conducted using the FEA and the design modifications are validated using CFD simulations. A comparative study of the FEA analysis results and Fluid-Structure Interaction analysis results is presented. In addition, different mechanistic models developed to quantify the LCO and GCU of the GLCC are discussed. Finally, short-term and long-term research goals are presented along with guiding principles of teaching philosophy.
Biography: Dr. Srinivas Swaroop Kolla received his B.S degree (2002) from Nagarjuna University in India and M.S. (2007) and Ph.D. (2018) degrees from The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, all in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Kolla has 9 years of experience pursuing a professional career working in cross-functional teams across Europe and India on industry projects including Oil & Gas, Medical and Automotive sectors. Between 2007 and 2015, he worked in various roles starting as a Research Engineer to Project Manager leading teams developing components and systems. During his career with FMC Technologies in France, he worked on the project “PRELUDE” an FLNG/FPSO unit being developed currently by Samsung Industries. Dr. Kolla has a multi-disciplinary background in mechanical and petroleum engineering and his research focus on Multiphase Flow, Separation Technologies, Pressure vessels, Flow Assurance, Pumps and Design of components & Systems using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) as well as Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI). He has published several refereed journal and conference papers, while some are under review. He has also applied for 2 US patents and few more are being prepared for submission this year. He serves on executive committee of ASME Mid-Continent Section and Co-organizer of Multiphase Flow Technical Track in ASME Fluid Engineering Division Summer Conference and a member of FMTC, CFDTC, MFTC technical committees. He also serves as a reviewer for several conferences and journals. Dr. Kolla has received several awards, scholarships, and fellowships during his career. His awards over the past 3 years include ASME Petroleum Division Scholarship, ASME Fluid Engineering Division-Graduate Scholarship, The University of Tulsa Distinguished Chapman Scholarship, Graduate Student Fellowship and Bellwether Fellowship.