Prediction of the Natural Gas Compressibility Factor by using MLP and RBF Artificial Neural Networks

The compressibility factor indicates the deviation of the real natural gas from the ideal behavior. It is one of the most important parameters in the natural gas industry. In the present study, two different types of neural networks – multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis functions (RBF) – were used to predict the compressibility factor Z of natural gas. The pressure, temperature, and speed of sound (SoS) were chosen as input parameters for the artificial neural network (ANN) models. The training and testing of the MLP-ANN and RBF-ANN were carried out on the basis of 151 days of continuous measurements. Different variants of both types of neural networks were implemented and a comparative analysis of their modeling capabilities was performed. The models developed show a very high prediction accuracy, with the results obtained showing a certain advantage of the RBF-ANN. The comparative analysis was performed on the basis of standard performance indicators such as R², root mean square error (RMSE), mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE). The present study shows an intelligent method implemented in two different variants to determine the compressibility factor of natural gas without the need to use the equation of state.