Adaptive Feedback Linearizing Control of a Gas Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone

Abstract

As subsea production of oil and gas reaches deeper and more remote waters, the need for more compact separation equipment arises. The gas hquid cylindrical cyclone (GLCC) is a widely used separation device in topside facihties, but has yet to reach the same popularity subsea. The GLCC separates gas and liquid by inducing a swirl on the multiphase flow. Because of its small size, the GLCC is sensitive to flow variations which may reduce separation performance. The performance of the GLCC can be improved by control. In this paper we consider a nonlinear dynamic model of a GLCC containing unmeasured variables and states. We present an adaptive feedback linearizing controfler and prove that the origin of the gas pressure and liquid level error systems are locally asymptotically stable in the sense of Lyapunov on a specified domain. The model and controller are implemented in Simulink and simulations show that the controfler works very wefl, even with uncertainties in assumed known parameters, and measurement noise.