Hi, i am working at oil plant. we have three phase separators, we tried ultrasonic, DP type, ER type but still no satisfactory results. Appreciate if anyone can share successful experience with level transmitters at 3phase separators, secondly with type of level transmitters best suited at oil service

 

Hi

Here some notes from a OEM brochure:


Level Measurement Solutions


MAGNETROL has produced level measurement solutions for inlet separators:

• For point level:
  Series 3 float-actuated external cage level switch or Thermatel® Model TD1/TD2 switch
• For continuous level and interface level:
  Eclipse® Model 706 guided wave radar transmitter; Jupiter® JM4 magnetostrictive level transmitter; or E3 Modulevel® displacer transmitter

You most welcome,

Cheers
James

 

A quick update would be appreciated

 

Hi, i am working at oil plant. we have three phase separators, we tried ultrasonic, DP type, ER type but still no satisfactory results. Appreciate if anyone can share successful experience with level transmitters at 3phase separators, secondly with type of level transmitters best suited at oil service

Hi,

Have you tried or thought about displacer type? We had a same sort of issue where we had a desalter unit and we needed to determine the level of treated crude. We had gas, oil and water. We had used displacer from chemtrol . Let me know if it helps

 

Different and probably better technologies can be used apart from the ones you already tried. Before the weir, for oil/water interface measurement you can use Guided Wave Radars, best installation is in external chamber using the side-side connections of the DP cell. Depending on kind of separator and API grade of oil it is usually necessary to have cleaning cycles, external installation allows to make them without process interruption.
You can also try capacitance probes, better with same external installation for same reasons. There are some RF admittance probes installed internally that gives a kind of density measurement in the installation point. You should use 2 or 3 of them having available the side process connections at the right height.
The lethal weapon is nucleonic measurement: you can have just interface with one internal source and 2 detectors installed externally or even a multiphase density profile (sand, water, emulsion, oil, foam) along the whole range with several detectors installed externally. Note: such system costs several hundreds thousand bucks...
Best manufacturers for what above: Endress+Hauser, Magnetrol, Vega, Agar RF probes. For nucleonics: Endress+Hauser, Vega, Berthold, Tracerco