Hydraulic Analysis of Brine Reinjection Pump Systems at Dieng Geothermal Field, Central Java

Abstract

The migration from hot brine injection system to cold brine injection system in managing liquid disposal at Dieng geothermal field was adopted to minimize the operational problems due to the presence of solid deposition. However, this attempt seemed not to be effective due to the intensive scale rate deposition. This study aims to simulate the performance of reinjection pumps due to the scale deposition as one of the major problems in the plant operation. The Pipesim software was utilized to simulate the performance of the reinjection pumps and hydraulic analyses. The required input data for the calculation were pipe routing, bends, valves, pipe elevation, etc. The effects of impeller diameter and pipeline diameter changes due to scale deposition were evaluated. The result of the calculation was in the form of head of the pumping system. The calculated head then was compared with the design head to evaluate the performance of the reinjection pumps. The simulation results showed that the changes in diameter of impeller and pipeline gave significant effects on the performance of reinjection pumps.