3-phase Gravity Separator (Tutorial)

This course introduces you to the simulation of a 3-phase gravity separator using Ansys Fluent® fluid simulation software. It focuses on modeling the separation of gas, oil, and water using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method in a multiphase flow environment. The course walks through the setup, simulation, and visualization of phase separation in a horizontal separator, emphasizing the use of adaptive meshing and interface tracking.

Setup takes around 30 minutes; runtime varies based on your input as this is a transient simulation.

Learning Outcomes:

Following completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the working principle of a 3-phase gravity separator,
• Set up a multiphase simulation in Ansys Fluent software using the VOF (Volume of Fluid) model.
• Create and adapt a computational mesh using Fluent Meshing with polyhedral cells. 
• Define appropriate boundary and initial conditions.
• Configure solver settings.
• Visualize simulation results.
• Understand the limitations of the simplified model.

Prerequisites:

• A basic understanding of Ansys Fluent software and multiphase modeling concepts is essential.
• Since phases are immiscible, it is important to have some top-level knowledge about interface tracking schemes, such as implicit or explicit VOF schemes.

Please note: These training materials were developed and tested in the 2025R1 release.