Increasing the Computational Speed of
Flash Calculations With Applications for
Compositional, Transient Simulations
Claus P. Rasmussen, SPE, Calsep A/S; Kristian Krejbjerg, SPE, Calsep Inc.; Michael L. Michelsen, IVC-SEP,
Technical U. of Denmark; and Kersti E. Bjurstrøm, Scandpower Petroleum Technology A/S
Summary
Approaches are presented for reducing the computation time spent
on flash calculations in compositional, transient simulations. In a
conventional flash calculation, the majority of the simulation time
is spent on stability analysis, even for systems far into the single-
phase region. A criterion has been implemented for deciding when
it is justified to bypass the stability analysis. With the implemen-
tation of the developed time-saving initiatives, it has been shown
for a number of compositional, transient pipeline simulations that
a reduction of the computation time spent on flash calculations by
approximately 85 to 90% can be achieved.
Introduction
Modeling of oil production requires simulations of transient flow.
Examples are miscible-gas displacement in petroleum reservoirs
and multiphase flow in pipelines, including slug formation and
startup scenarios. In a typical transient-flow simulation, the system
is discretized into a number of cells or sections. Phase amounts and
phase properties are needed for each cell or section to solve the
conservation equations in the model, and specifically for transient
pipeline simulations to calculate such properties as heat loss to the
surroundings, liquid holdup, and pressure drop. If the overall com-
position is constant during the simulation, the phase properties can
be stored in precalculated tables listing the needed properties as a
function of pressure and temperature (Bendiksen et al. 1991; Xu
and Shea 2001). This is referred to in the following sections as a
noncompositional, table-based simulation.
When simulating miscible-gas displacement in reservoirs, the
assumption of a constant overall composition is not adequate be-
cause the injection gas will dissolve in the reservoir fluid and vice
versa. Similarly, in many typical multiphase pipelines, the fluid
composition will vary because of velocity differences between
phases, interfacial mass transfer, and merging networks. In these
situations, a compositional approach is useful. A compositional
model has the drawback that the computation time is much higher
than that of a noncompositional table-based approach. The phase
amounts and properties must be evaluated in each cell or section in
each timestep. Furthermore, phase compositions are required to
calculate the interfacial mass transfer. Nevertheless, the increased
accuracy in the fluid description makes the compositional ap-
proach attractive to represent multiphase pipelines and reservoirs
with large compositional variations.
Flash Equilibrium Calculations in Compositional,
Transient Simulations
The physical properties of a fluid in a cell or section depend on
whether the fluid is present as a single phase or splits into several
equilibrium phases. A flash calculation is therefore required in
each timestep to determine the number of equilibrium phases and
their amounts and compositions. Even with relatively few mixture
components, the computation time of a compositional, transient
Copyright © 2006 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 84181) was first presented at the 2003 SPE Annual Technical Conference
and Exhibition, Denver, 5–8 October, and revised for publication. Original manuscript re-
ceived for review 29 October 2003. Revised manuscript received 6 October 2005. Paper
peer approved 8 October 2005.
32
simulation far exceeds that of a corresponding noncompositional,
table-based simulation; furthermore, the computation time in-
creases with an increased number of components.
Consider, as an example, a typical transient pipeline simulation.
The total number of discretized sections depends on the total
length of the pipeline and the desired degree of detail in the simu-
lation, but a typical number of sections is approximately 100. The
total number of timesteps depends on slug formation, liquid
holdup, and varying boundary conditions but is often in the order
of 50,000. That is, a compositional, transient pipeline simulation
comprising 100 sections and 50,000 timesteps requires 5 million
flash calculations.
Even with an optimized algorithm, the flash computation time
typically constitutes 70 to 80% of the total computation time re-
quired for a compositional, transient pipeline simulation. It is
therefore highly desirable to be able to reduce the computation
time associated with flash calculations.
To further investigate the computation time spent on flash cal-
culations in a typical compositional, transient simulation, condi-
tions have been recorded in an arbitrarily selected section during
an actual compositional, transient pipeline simulation. The condi-
tions comprise changes in overall composition z, pressure p, and
temperature T during 1,757 timesteps.
In the present work, a hydrocarbon fluid lumped to 6, 12, and
18 components, respectively, is investigated. For each lumped
fluid, a set of noncritical and near-critical conditions have been
investigated, giving a total of six different scenarios. To facilitate
a verification of the outlined procedures, the variations in overall
composition, pressure, and temperature with time have been ap-
proximated using sixth-degree polynomials, as outlined in Eq. 1 in
the noncritical scenario for the fluid lumped to six components. In
addition, complete data describing all six cases are available in
electronic form from the corresponding author (cpr@calsep.com).
6
兺 a t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
␾j = j i
i
i=0
In Eq. 1, ␾j is composition, pressure, or temperature; aji are poly-
nomial coefficients; and t is the index for the timestep. The poly-
nomial coefficients describing the change in pressure and tempera-
ture for all timesteps (1 ⱕ t ⱕ 1,757) in the six-component, non-
critical scenario, are given in Table 1a.
The polynomial coefficients describing the change in compo-
sition for timesteps above 944 in the six-component, noncritical
scenario are given in Table 1b.
In the initial part of the simulation (t < 944), the overall com-
position is constant and equal to the following:
N2+CO2 : 3.6583 mol%
C1–C3 : 94.7852 mol%
C4 : 1.1024 mol%
C5–C6 : 0.3688 mol%
C7 : 0.0758 mol%
C8–C14 : 0.0095 mol%
The critical pressures, critical temperatures, and acentric factors
of each component in the six-component fluid can be seen in
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

Table 2, whereas the applied interaction coefficients for each bi-
nary component pair can be seen in Table 3.
The six scenarios have been analyzed with respect to compu-
tation time, when one flash calculation is carried out in each
timestep using a traditional approach, where each calculation dis-
regards information from previous timesteps or adjacent cells.
The simulation times shown in Table 4 are for computation
time spent only on flash calculations (i.e., the simulation time used
on property calculations, flow calculations, etc. has been left out).
The simulations have been performed on a computer with a Pen-
tium IV 2.4-GHz processor and 512 MB RAM. The applied pro-
gramming language is Fortran, and the program has been compiled
with Compaq Visual Fortran version 6.6.
For six components, the tabulated flash frequency corresponds
to a computation time of approximately 10 minutes for a typical
transient-flow scenario comprising 5 million flash calculations,
which is quite high. Furthermore, the computation time increases
linearly (or slightly stronger) with the number of components.
In all six scenarios, approximately half the computation time is
spent on solving the equilibrium equations and the other half on
verifying stability (i.e., that the proper conditions correspond to a
single, stable phase). To further reduce the computation time, a
more efficient approach for both types of calculations will there-
fore be needed.
Basic Flash Algorithms
The computation times of Table 4 are based on the methodology
for flash calculations described by Michelsen (1993) and in more
detail by Michelsen and Mollerup (2004). Initial estimates for the
K-factors are obtained from the Wilson approximation:
冉 冊
pci Tci
ln KWilson
i = ln + 5.373共1 + ␻i兲 1 − . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2)
p T
In Eq. 2 pci, Tci, and ␻i are critical pressure, critical temperature,
and acentric factor, respectively, for component i. Ki is the equi-
librium factor,
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
yi
Ki = , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
xi
where yi and xi are the mole fractions of component i in the gas and
liquid phases, respectively. The Wilson K-factors are used to cal-
culate the first approximation to the phase split and the phase com-
positions x and y. Subsequent equilibrium factors are obtained from
␸li共p,T,x兲
Ki = . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (4)
␸vi 共p,T,y兲
The successive substitution procedure is accelerated by means of
the dominant eigenvalue method and followed by a switch to a
second-order Gibbs energy minimization (using analytic deriva-
tives) if the accelerated successive substitution does not converge
rapidly. If the phase-split calculation fails to yield two phases,
stability analysis by tangent plane distance minimization is per-
formed (Michelsen 1982). The stability analysis will either con-
firm that the fluid at the specified conditions forms a single, stable
phase, or it will provide a composition estimate for a phase split
and enable the phase-split calculation to be carried out.
Speeding Up Flash Calculations
The approach described above is designed for standalone flash
calculations, where the emphasis is on safety (i.e., avoiding pro-
gram failure) and correctness (i.e., that the correct number of
phases and the correct phase compositions are found). Preserving
these features, it is possible to take advantage of the typical situ-
ation in flow simulations, in which repeated solutions to equilib-
rium calculations with only small changes in the conditions occur.
The Two-Phase Region
If two equilibrium phases are present in a cell at a given timestep,
it is very likely that two phases will also be present at the same
position in the next timestep. This scenario is usually encountered
when simulating miscible-gas displacement in reservoirs, but it
also occurs in pipeline simulations. The solution strategy for in-
creasing the computational speed of flash calculations in the two-
phase region in such situations has been thoroughly investigated
previously, and the approach in this work is very similar to that of
Michelsen (1998). Michelsen, however, deals only with the Soave-
Redlich-Kwong (SRK) equation of state (Soave 1972) with clas-
sical mixing rules, whereas the procedures in the actual work are
generally applicable to any equation of state.
It should be noted that cubic equations of state with nonclas-
sical mixing rules [such as that of Huron and Vidal (1979)] or new
equations of state [e.g., the Cubic-Plus-Association (CPA) equa-
tion of state (Kontogeorgis et al. 1996)] are required for a satis-
factory description of multiphase flow in pipelines. In such sce-
narios, both hydrocarbons and polar components, such as water
and liquid hydrate inhibitors, are present.
33

In the present approach, the results of the previous timestep,
t–1, are used as initial estimates as follows:
Calculate distribution fractions ␪i from
冋 册
␤yi
␪i = , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (5)
␤yi + 共1 − ␤兲xi t−1
and use these as initial estimates for the current timestep, t.
vi = zti␪i, li = zti共1 − ␪i兲 , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (6)
where vi and li are the molar amounts of component i in the vapor
and the liquid phase. With these initial estimates, successive sub-
stitution is skipped, and the simulation proceeds directly to second-
order Gibbs energy minimization. Most likely, convergence will
take place after one or two iterations. If this is not the case, or if
any “problems” arise (e.g., iterations leading to negative compo-
sition variables), the calculation procedure reverts to the safe tra-
ditional procedure described previously. Such problems are typi-
cally encountered when crossing the phase boundary between the
two-phase region and the single-phase region.
Alternatively, the approach of Michelsen (1980) could be used,
in which initial estimates are generated by linearly extrapolating
the converged phase compositions of the previous timestep to the
current timestep by use of the Jacobian matrix. The approach has
been investigated, but it was found to provide no significant re-
ductions in computation time.
Table 5 shows computation times for the six scenarios de-
scribed previously using the revised approach for the two-phase
region. By comparing with Table 4, it can be seen that the total
simulation time can be reduced by an average of approximately 45%.
The Single-Phase Region
If the fluid in a given timestep forms a single, stable phase, it is
most likely that it will remain as a single phase in the following
timestep. The traditional approach involving stability analysis can
determine whether the fluid at the current timestep still forms only
a single, stable phase or if two equilibrium phases have formed,
but it is, as indicated earlier, relatively time consuming. An im-
portant focus of this work is, therefore, the development of a
strategy that reduces the computation time spent on stability analy-
sis in the single-phase region.
The stability analysis of the standard flash procedure is based
on the tangent plane criterion of Gibbs (Michelsen 1982; Baker
et al. 1982). In the formulation of Michelsen (1982), minima of the
34
tangent plane distance are investigated. These are located as com-
positions w, satisfying
ln wi + ln ␸i共w兲 − ln zi = ln ␸i共z兲 = k, 兺 w = 1 . . . . . . . . . . . (7)
i
i
In Eq. 7, z represents the composition of the phase to be tested for
stability. The value of the tangent plane distance at the minimum
equals the constant k, and stability requires that this value is non-
negative at all minima. To ensure that a phase is stable, it is
therefore necessary to verify that k is non-negative at all minima.
Eq. 7 is seen to always have the noninformative “trivial solution,”
w⳱z; k⳱0.
The character of the solutions to the set of equations in Eq. 7
depends on the location in pT space of the phase z to be tested,
relative to the phase boundary. Fig. 1 shows a typical phase en-
velope for a reservoir oil mixture.
The following cases exist:
1. The phase is unstable [i.e., the mixture will form two phases
(Point A, Fig. 1)]. In this case, Eq. 7 will have one or two solutions
for which k is negative.
2. Exactly at the phase boundary (Point B). Here, one solution
to Eq. 7 will be the trivial solution and the other a nontrivial
solution (representing the composition of the incipient phase) with
a value of k equal to zero.
3. In the single-phase region, but “close to” the phase boundary
(Point C). One solution to Eq. 7 will be the trivial solution and the
other a nontrivial solution with a positive value of k. Increasing the
distance from the phase boundary increases the value of k. This region
will, in the following, be referred to as the “shadow-phase region.”
4. “Far from” the phase boundary (Point D). Only the trivial
solution is obtained.
The essential purpose of stability analysis is to distinguish between
Case 1 and the other cases. A failure to determine a negative
tangent plane distance means that a mixture is taken to be a single
phase even though it would form two phases. The objective is to
reduce the amount of computation time spent on stability analysis
to the smallest period possible while ensuring that the correct
result is obtained.
In the standard flash procedure, the solutions in the single-
phase region are determined through a full, two-sided stability
analysis, with two different sets of initial estimates for the trial
phase w, a gas-like composition and a liquid-like composition,
calculated by means of the Wilson K-factors, as shown in Eq. 8.
Yi
Yi = KWilson zi, wvap =
兺Y
i i
j
j
zi Xi
Xi = , i =
wliq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (8)
KWilson
i 兺Xj
j
The procedure for carrying out the tangent plane distance minimi-
zation is described in detail in Michelsen and Mollerup (2004).
Similar to the phase-split calculation, this procedure uses a
combination of successive substitution and a second-order
Gibbs energy minimization with a set of transformed variables.
With almost 20 years of use in the industry, this approach has
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
appeared extremely robust, and convergence problems have been
virtually absent.
In the two-phase region, one or both initial estimates converge
to a solution with a negative tangent plane distance. In the single-
phase region close to the bubblepoint line (as Point C), the liquid-
like estimate will converge to the trivial solution, whereas the
gas-like estimate will yield the nontrivial solution with a positive
k. Conversely, close to the dewpoint line, the trivial solution is
found from the gas-like estimate and the nontrivial from the liquid-
like. Finally, far from the phase boundary (Point D), both estimates
result in the trivial solution. The limit at which a positive solution
to Eq. 7 can be found is shown as the dashed line in Fig. 1, and as
previously mentioned, the region between the phase boundary and
this line is denoted as the shadow-phase region.
The Single-Phase Region Inside the Shadow-Phase Re-
gion. Consider one section in a pipeline or one cell in a reservoir
simulation. A full, two-sided stability analysis has, in a given
timestep, shown that conditions correspond to a single phase like
Point C in Fig. 1. This is indicated by the presence of a nontrivial
solution with a positive value of the tangent plane distance, k. The
resulting nontrivial solution denoted as the shadow phase (in this
example, originating from the gas-like estimate) is used as initial
estimate for the w-composition for a tangent plane minimization in
the subsequent timestep. The strategy for the shadow-phase region
is, therefore, somewhat similar to the strategy used for the two-
phase region described previously.
However, significant differences exist between the two ap-
proaches. In the two-phase region, the full stability analysis is
completely bypassed, and calculations proceed directly to the
phase-split calculation, where the converged phase amounts and
compositions from the previous timestep are used as initial esti-
mates. In the shadow-phase region, the approach with a full two-
sided stability analysis is abandoned in favor of a one-sided sta-
bility analysis. Because the converged shadow phase originates
from the gas-like estimate, the phase boundary is approached from
the region of a single-phase liquid. On the phase boundary, the
Fig. 1—Phase diagram for a typical oil.
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
emergent phase will be a gas phase, and it is therefore only nec-
essary to search for a gas-like trial phase, hence the approach with
the one-sided stability analysis. This approach allows the use of a
second-order minimization approach right from the start. In most
cases, convergence is obtained in one or two iterations to a new
minimum with either a positive value (still in the shadow-phase
region) or a negative value (the simulation has moved into the
two-phase region, as for Point A). The final possibility is conver-
gence to the trivial solution. This happens when the conditions
have moved sufficiently far from the phase boundary in the direc-
tion of Point D.
The Single-Phase Region Outside the Shadow-Phase Region. If
a full stability analysis yields only the trivial solution, like Point D
in Fig. 1, it is evident that substantial changes in composition,
temperature, or pressure are required for a move into the two-phase
region. It is possible to take advantage of that fact by saving the
current composition, temperature, and pressure as references and
completely bypass the stability analysis for the following timesteps
until substantial changes in composition, temperature, or pressure
have taken place. When allowing stability analyses to be bypassed
in the single-phase region, there is a risk that the detection of two
equilibrium phases may fail. To ensure the correct detection of
two-phase situations, it is necessary to be able to locate the phase
boundary based only on the current composition, temperature, and
pressure and the history of the system in the previous timesteps.
Far from the critical point, the width of the shadow-phase region
is significant, and the allowed changes in composition, tempera-
ture, and pressure are determined accordingly to ensure that at least
one full stability analysis will be performed inside the shadow-
phase region. The calculation procedure will then revert to the
shadow-phase approach (i.e., the shadow-phase region acts as a buffer
zone preventing the failure to detect the presence of two phases).
The width of the shadow-phase region, however, decreases
sharply in the vicinity of the critical point, and the changes allowed
before reinitiating a full stability analysis must therefore be related
to the distance from the critical point. Close to the critical point,
only very small changes are allowed before a complete stability
analysis is performed again. For this purpose, a simple and easily
calculated measure of the distance from the critical point is required.
The matrix of composition derivatives of the fugacity coeffi-
cients provides this measure. Michelsen (1982) defines
Bij = ␦ij + 公ninj 冉 冊
⭸ ln ␸i
⭸nj p,T
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (9)
For an ideal solution, all eigenvalues of B are equal to 1. At the
limit of intrinsic stability (the spinodal) and at the mixture critical
point, the smallest eigenvalue of B equals 0 (Michelsen 1982). In
addition, the spinodal and the phase boundary have a common
tangent at the mixture critical point. The smallest eigenvalue of
B⳱b has therefore been chosen as the measure of distance.
The phase boundary in the critical region of the mixture of Fig.
1 is shown in Fig. 2, together with the spinodal and other lines of
constant b. In the “dangerous” region in the vicinity of the critical
point, where the shadow-phase region is very narrow, it is noted
that the value of b provides an excellent measure of the distance to
35

Fig. 2—Contour plot of parameter b.
the phase boundary. When the full stability analysis only results in
trivial solutions, the minimum eigenvalue, b, is calculated and
stored together with the composition, temperature, and pressure.
As mentioned above, in the following timesteps, all calculations
are bypassed unless the changes in these variables exceed a speci-
fied tolerance chosen to be proportional to b.
Along the phase boundary, in the vicinity of the critical point,
b is to a first approximation proportional to the square of the
distance from the critical point, and the relative change in b from
the phase boundary to the outer perimeter of the shadow-phase
region is approximately 1/8 (Michelsen 1984). Based on this and a
large number of simulation experiments, the purely empirical corre-
lations in Eq. 10 have been determined for bypassing stability analysis
in the single-phase region outside the shadow-phase region.
bold
|zi − zi,old| ⱖ
10
bold p
|p − pold| ⱖ
10
|T − Told| ⱖ 10bold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (10)
In Eq. 10, zi, T, and p denote the composition, temperature, and
pressure, respectively, at the current timestep, whereas zi,old, Told,
pold, and bold denote the composition, temperature, pressure, and
value of b at the timestep where the previous full stability analysis
was performed.
Table 6 shows the gains from using the revised approaches to
flash calculations in both the single- and two-phase regions for the
examples used previously in Tables 4 and 5.
As can be seen from Table 6, the six-component near-critical
scenario appears to give deviating results as compared to the other
near-critical cases. The reason is the lumping of the fluid. When
lumping down to six components, some fluid-description accuracy
is lost, resulting in the fluid behavior of this particular near-critical
scenario being considerably different from the remaining near-
critical scenarios.
Furthermore, it is seen from Table 6 that the total computation
time is decreased dramatically by applying the criteria of Eq. 10
for determining when to bypass two-sided stability analysis in the
single-phase region outside the shadow-phase region. For six com-
ponents, the tabulated flash frequency corresponds to a computa-
tion time of approximately 1 minute for a typical transient-flow
scenario comprising 5 million flash calculations.
In the above simulations, it was furthermore observed that,
although more than 98% of all stability investigations were being
bypassed by this approach, no misidentifications occurred.
Alternative Ways of Reducing the
Computation Time
A potential alternative approach is to use the “reduction methods”
approach. These methods take advantage of the fact that under
36
certain favorable conditions, the set of equations that must be
solved in equilibrium calculations can be reduced from the number
of components, C, to a smaller number (typically three to six).
The first such approach was that of Michelsen (1986), who
demonstrated that in cases in which all binary interaction coeffi-
cients in a cubic equation-of-state model are zero, the equilibrium
equations are reduced to three. Later methods, such as those of
Hendriks (1988), Firoozabadi and Pan (2002), and Pan and
Firoozabadi (2003), approximate the matrix of binary interaction
coefficients with a matrix of less than full rank, (typically of rank
1 to 3) or make other assumptions about the interdependence of the
interaction coefficients. The advantage claimed by proponents of
the reduction methods is that the smaller size should result in both
quicker and more-stable solution procedures.
With the potential exception of the rare case in which all in-
teraction coefficients can be assumed to be zero, the authors will
question that such a speed advantage exists. The set of equations
to be solved in the reduction methods appears much more complex
than that of the traditional approach; in particular, the evaluation of
the Jacobian matrix or its equivalent seems very cumbersome (Pan
and Firoozabadi 2003). With the same number of independent vari-
ables, the reduction methods can therefore be expected to be substan-
tially less computationally efficient than the traditional approach.
Proponents of the reduction methods claim that in the tradi-
tional formulation, the computation time increases with the third
power of the component number, C (Firoozabadi and Pan 2002),
making it infeasible to use when many components (e.g., 15 to 20)
are required for the fluid description. From the present examples,
it is obvious that the third-power variation does not hold. Accord-
ingly, there is no potential speed advantage of reduction methods
for mixtures with many components because the observed devel-
opment in computation time with the number of components is
close to linear. A fair comparison of the reduction method and the
traditional flash is therefore dependent on an optimum implemen-
tation of the traditional flash, and the authors have never encoun-
tered the problems described in Firoozabadi and Pan (2002) and
Pan and Firoozabadi (2003).
Finally, the reduction methods are limited to cubic equations of
state with additional restrictions on the interaction coefficients
and, except in rare cases, cannot reproduce the original equation of
state exactly. In contrast, the methodology presented here is com-
pletely general and does not imply any restrictions on the equation
of state used.
Extension to More Than Two Phases
An extension of the presented methodology to mixtures forming
more than two phases is in several ways straightforward but does
introduce new complexities. A typical extension would be to in-
clude an aqueous phase that, in addition to water, might contain
alcohols, glycols, and dissolved hydrocarbons. In case all phases
were present in the previous timestep, direct application of a sec-
ond-order approach with initial estimates from the previous step is
the obvious choice, and the same applies when only two of the
three phases were present.
The added complexity relates to the stability analysis, where it
is now necessary to investigate a variety of different possibilities.
When a hydrocarbon phase is missing, it is expected that the
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
criteria for bypassing stability analysis can be used unchanged, and
when an aqueous phase is missing, stability analysis is expected to
be fairly straightforward because the composition of the trial phase
is dominated by water. In particular, the stability analysis is ex-
tremely simple if the aqueous phase is assumed to contain only
pure water (a reasonable assumption when alcohols, glycols, and
salts are not present) because the stability analysis only requires
that the fugacity of water dissolved in the hydrocarbon phases is
checked against that of pure water.
Conclusions
Approaches for reducing the flash calculation computation time in
compositional, transient simulations on hydrocarbon systems have
been presented and discussed. The methodology is based on the
assumption that in the majority of simulations, only small changes
in pressure, temperature, or composition will take place from one
timestep to the next in a given section or cell of a pipeline or
reservoir. In the two-phase region, results from the previous
timestep are used as estimates of the solution in the current
timestep. In the single-phase region, a criterion has been estab-
lished for evaluating whether a stability analysis is needed or can
be bypassed. To prevent an erroneous single-phase prediction in
the two-phase region resulting from bypassed stability analyses, a
buffer zone denoted as the shadow-phase region is used in the
vicinity of the phase boundary away from the critical point. An-
other measure is used to predict the distance to the phase boundary
in the near-critical region. These measures provide a safe proce-
dure for bypassing stability analysis along the whole phase bound-
ary. For the test scenarios considered, these approaches reduce
simulation time spent on flash calculations in a compositional,
transient-flow simulation by between approximately 85 and 90%.
For a six-component fluid, effectively 5 million flash calculations
can be carried out in approximately 1 minute when simulations are
performed on a computer with a Pentium IV 2.4 GHz processor
and 512 MB RAM.
Nomenclature
a ⳱ coefficients in sixth-degree polynomial
B ⳱ matrix of composition derivatives of fugacity
coefficients
Bij ⳱ composition derivative of the fugacity coefficient of
component i with respect to component j
b ⳱ smallest eigenvalue in B
C ⳱ component number
i ⳱ component or time index
j ⳱ component or coefficient index
k ⳱ defined in Eq. 7
K ⳱ equilibrium factor
l ⳱ molar amount of component in liquid phase
n ⳱ mole number
p ⳱ pressure, atm
pc ⳱ critical pressure, atm
t ⳱ time, seconds
T ⳱ temperature, K
Tc ⳱ critical temperature, K
v ⳱ molar amount of component in gas phase
w ⳱ mole fraction in trial phase
w ⳱ vector of trial-phase mole fractions
x ⳱ mole fraction in liquid phase
x ⳱ vector of liquid mole fractions
X ⳱ mole fraction in liquid-like composition estimate
y ⳱ mole fraction in gas phase
y ⳱ vector of gas mole fractions
Y ⳱ mole fraction in gas-like composition estimate
z ⳱ mole fraction in feed
z ⳱ vector of feed mole fractions
␤ ⳱ gas-phase fraction
␦ij ⳱ Kronecker delta, ␦ij⳱0 for i⫽ j and ␦ij⳱1 for i⳱j
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
␾ ⳱ composition, pressure, or temperature
␸ ⳱ fugacity coefficient
␪ ⳱ fraction of components ending up in the gas phase
␻ ⳱ acentric factor
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Allan K. Rydahl, Scandpower Petro-
leum Technology Inc., for helpful contributions.
References
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SI Metric Conversion Factors
atm × 1.013250* E+05 ⳱ Pa
°F (°F + 459.67)/1.8 ⳱K
*Conversion factor is exact.
Claus P. Rasmussen works for Calsep A/S in the area of mod-
eling of PVT and phase behavior of petroleum systems. e-mail:
cpr@calsep.com. His work areas currently include develop-
ment of the PVT simulation program PVTsim and development
of the flash engine for the compositional version of the tran-
sient-flow simulator OLGA. Rasmussen holds an MS degree in
chemical engineering from the Technical U. of Denmark. Kris-
tian Krejbjerg has been president of Calsep Inc. in Houston
since 2001. e-mail: kk@calsep.com. He previously worked for 2
years at Calsep A/S in Denmark developing the PVT simulation
program PVTsim. His work areas currently include development
of a compositional hydrate-kinetics model. Krejbjerg holds an
37
MS degree in chemical engineering from the Technical U. of
Denmark. Michael L. Michelsen is a professor in the Dept. of
Chemical Engineering at the Technical U. of Denmark, where
he has been employed since 1968. e-mail: mlm@kt.dtu.dk. He
has spent 1 year at the U. of California, Berkeley, working on
process control of chemical reactors. His research interests in-
clude mathematical modeling of chemical systems. For the
last 25 years, his main research interest has been the develop-
ment of algorithms for the calculation of phase equilibria (in
particular two-phase and multiphase flash and phase enve-
lopes), and he is the author or coauthor of numerous articles in
38
this field. Kersti E. Bjurstrøm is a senior consultant at Scand-
power Petroleum Technology A/S, Kjeller, Norway. e-mail:
keb@scandpowerpt.com. She is a project leader and software
developer who has developed different models for tracking
the concentration of components of multiphase flow in OLGA
(a transient multiphase-flow simulator). Bjurstrøm also has de-
veloped a general network model in OLGA, and she previously
developed software for the reservoir technology department
at Scandpower Petroleum Technology A/S. She holds an MS
degree in mathematical sciences from the Norwegian U. of
Science and Technology.
February 2006 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering