Sensitivity Analysis and optimization of the Inducer in a Rotary Gas Separator of Electrical Submersible Pump under single phase and two phase conditions

The inducer is an axial Turbo-machinery installed at the inlet of Rotary Gas Separators of Electrical Submersible Pump to increase the head and overcome the pressure drop of the outlet pipes. In this study the inducer optimization in order to increase the head and the efficiency has been addressed using the computational fluid dynamics,. After the initial design, the inlet angle and outlet angle on the shroud, the position of the leading edge and trailing edge on the shroud as well as the blade thickness, selected as effective parameters. To reduce the computational cost a Surrogates model based on the Kriging model is used to predict the objective function. Flow analysis of the single and two phases are conducted by solving three-dimensional steady Navier–Stokes equations. Inhomogeneous two-phase flow is modeled in the ANSYS-CFX software using the Euler-Euler approach and considering interphase forces. From the genetic algorithm, the values of the parameters in the optimal points are calculated and the results are used for sensitivity analysis. Regarding the sensitivity analysis, the input angle and the blade thickness have the greatest impact on the head and also the outlet angle has the greatest impact on the inducer efficiency. Numerical simulation results show that the optimum geometry in single-phase and two-phase conditions provide more head.