Prediction of hydrate formation temperature based on an improved empirical correlation by imperialist competitive algorithm

Formation of gas hydrates is an important problem in production and transmission of natural gases. Hence, it is a particular interest and also vital to estimate the hydrate formation conditions. To do so, the Katz gas gravity method can be used as one of the simplest techniques. Numerous correlations have been presented so far, among which one of the most popular one with very good accuracy is the so called Ghiasi model. In this study, the imperialist competitive algorithm is applied to improve the Ghiasi correlation by using the Katz data. Error analysis of the results demonstrated that the improved equation had the highest precision in comparison with the Ghiasi correlation and also the other models reported by researchers.