DEVELOPMENT OF ANALYTICAL DESIGN EQUATION FOR GAS-PIPELINES

Based on mass and momentum balance, a rigorous analytical equation is derived for compressible fluid flow in pipelines. This equation gives a functional relationship between flow rate, inlet pressure, and outlet pressure. It is very useful in design calculations where any of these variables need to be estimated if the others are given. The equation can be used for any pipeline topology and configuration, including size and orientation. A number of problems of engineering importance are studied with this equation. They include bottomhole pressure (BHP) calculations in gas wells, gas injection calculations, and long-distance gas pipeline design calculations. The excellent agreement between predicted results and field data, with this equation for this wide variety of problems and conditions, demonstrate the efficacy of this equation for engineering applications. Simple computer programs, in both FORTRAN and BASIC, are developed to handle these applications. The BASIC program can be run on any programmable calculator with 3 kilobytes of memory.