Equinor has partnered with DNV for the next three years of further development of DNV’s KFX™ CO2 computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software for this purpose, according to the company's release.
KFX CO2 software simulates accidental releases of CO2 from storage facilities or leaks from pipelines, trucks or ships. CO2 is usually transported and stored in liquid or supercritical state. It is much heavier than air and a release of concentrated CO2 will therefore typically follow the contours of the terrain and accumulate in pits, valleys and lower-lying grounds. KFX CO2 will take complex thermodynamics and interaction between geometry and terrain into account, including dry-ice formation and sublimation of CO2. “The development project, funded by Equinor, will bring these detailed simulation capabilities to KFX CO2, supporting a new level of safety for handling captured CO2”, says DNV’s Project Manager Kjell Erik Rian.
DNV’s experience using advanced CFD simulation tools in safety analyses for full-scale CO2 capture projects is based on many years of development work of KFX software, which was acquired by DNV in 2017. Equinor has been a key partner in the development of KFX computational fluid dynamics software for 25 years.