Two common internals not discussed are coalescing plates and sand jets. It is possible to use various plate or pipe coalescer designs to aid in the coalescing of oil droplets in the water and water droplets in the oil.
Coalescing Plates
The installation of coalescing plates in the liquid section will cause the size of the water droplets entrained in the oil phase to increase, making gravity settling of these drops to the oil-water interface easier. Thus, the use of coalescing plates or the use of free-flow turbulent coalescers (SP Packs), will often lead to the ability to handle a given flow rate in a smaller vessel. However, because of the potential for plugging with sand, paraffin, or corrosion products, the use of coalescing plates should be discouraged, except for instances where the savings in vessel size and weight are large enough to justify the potential increase in operating costs and decrease in availability.
Sand Jets and Drains
In horizontal three-phase separators, one worry is the accumulation of sand and solids at the bottom of the vessel. If allowed to build up, these solids upset the separator operations by taking up vessel volume. Generally, the solids settle to the bottom and become well packed. To remove the solids, sand drains are opened in a controlled manner, and then high-pressure fluid, usually produced water, is pumped through the jets to agitate the solids and flush them down the drains. The sand jets are normally designed with a 20 ft/s jet tip velocity and aimed in such a manner to give good coverage of the vessel bottom. To prevent the settled sand from clogging the sand drains, sand pans or sand troughs are used to cover the outlets. These are inverted troughs with slotted side openings.
