A Mechanistic Model for Two-Phase Vertical Slug Flow in Pipes

1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 206-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. D. Sylvester

This paper presents the formulation of a mechanistic model for slug flow in vertical pipes. The equations required to determine holdup, the relevant velocities and pressure loss are presented. The model is fully deterministic and the pressure drop predictions of the model are compared to experimental field data for oil and gas and gas and water wells. For the 143 data points, the model shows an average percent difference of 4.83 percent, which is felt to be excellent.

1976 ◽  
Vol 54 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 111-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lambert Otten ◽  
Abdelrahman S. Fayed

Author(s):  
Zhenhua Zhang ◽  
Longbin Tao

Slug flow in horizontal pipelines and riser systems in deep sea has been proved as one of the challenging flow assurance issues. Large and fluctuating gas/liquid rates can severely reduce production and, in the worst case, shut down, depressurization or damage topside equipment, such as separator, vessels and compressors. Previous studies are primarily based on experimental investigations of fluid properties with air/water as working media in considerably scaled down model pipes, and the results cannot be simply extrapolated to full scale due to the significant difference in Reynolds number and other fluid conditions. In this paper, the focus is on utilizing practical shape of pipe, working conditions and fluid data for simulation and data analysis. The study aims to investigate the transient multiphase slug flow in subsea oil and gas production based on the field data, using numerical model developed by simulator OLGA and data analysis. As the first step, cases with field data have been modelled using OLGA and validated by comparing with the results obtained using PIPESYS in steady state analysis. Then, a numerical model to predict slugging flow characteristics under transient state in pipeline and riser system was set up using multiphase flow simulator OLGA. One of the highlights of the present study is the new transient model developed by OLGA with an added capacity of newly developed thermal model programmed with MATLAB in order to represent the large variable temperature distribution of the riser in deep water condition. The slug characteristics in pipelines and temperature distribution of riser are analyzed under the different temperature gradients along the water depth. Finally, the depressurization during a shut-down and then restart procedure considering hydrate formation checking is simulated. Furthermore, slug length, pressure drop and liquid hold up in the riser are predicted under the realistic field development scenarios.


Author(s):  
Dong Rip Kim ◽  
Jae-Mo Koo ◽  
Chen Fang ◽  
Julie E. Steinbrenner ◽  
Eon Soo Lee ◽  
...  

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the movement of liquid droplets and slugs in hydrophobic microchannels and develops a compact model for this type of two-phase flow. This model is used in the prediction of pressure drop and liquid water coverage ratio, key parameters in the operation of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC), the primary motivation for this work. A semi-empirical, periodic-steady two-phase separated flow compact model is formulated to characterize the slug flow behavior. The momentum equation includes the effects of acceleration, friction and surface tension on the pressure drop. The model considers spatial changes in slug velocity through the use of a force balance formulation. The model uses a departure scheme that computes slug size and shape at entrainment. The steady state slug flow compact model is capable of predicting liquid water coverage ratio and pressure drop using liquid and gas flow rates and advancing/receding triple point contact angles as its only inputs. The results indicate that the pressure drop increases as the droplet formation frequency increases.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zurwa Khan ◽  
Reza Tafreshi ◽  
Matthew Franchek ◽  
Karolos Grigoriadis

Abstract Pressure drop estimation across orifices for two-phase liquid-gas flow is essential to size valves and pipelines and decrease the probability of unsafe consequences or high costs in petroleum, chemical, and nuclear industries. While numerically modeling flow across orifices is a complex task, it can assess the effect of numerous orifice designs and operation parameters. In this paper, two-phase flow across orifices has been numerically modeled to investigate the effect of different fluid combinations and orifice geometries on pressure drop. The orifice is assumed to be located in a pipe with fully-developed upstream and downstream flow. Two liquid-gas fluid combinations, namely water-air, and gasoil liquid-gas mixture were investigated for different orifice to pipe area ratios ranging from 0.01 to 1 for the superficial velocity of 10 m/s. Volume of Fluid multiphase flow model along with k-epsilon turbulence model were used to estimate the pressure distribution of liquid-gas mixture along the pipe. The numerical model was validated for water-air with mean relative error less than 10.5%. As expected, a decrease in orifice to pipe area ratio resulted in larger pressure drops due to an increase in the contraction coefficients of the orifice assembly. It was also found that water-air had larger pressure drops relative to gasoil mixture due to larger vortex formation downstream of orifices. In parallel, a mechanistic model to directly estimate the local two-phase pressure drop across orifices was developed. The gas void fraction was predicted using a correlation by Woldesemayat and Ghajar, and applied to separated two-phase flow undergoing contraction and expansion due to an orifice. The model results were validated for different orifices and velocities, with the overall relative error of less than 40%, which is acceptable due to the uncertainties associated with measuring experimental pressure drop. Comparison of the developed numerical and mechanistic model showed that the numerical model is able to achieve a higher accuracy, while the mechanistic model requires minimal computation.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 3733
Author(s):  
Rasmus Thy Jørgensen ◽  
Gunvor Rossen Tonnesen ◽  
Matthias Mandø ◽  
Simon Pedersen

The goal of this study is to compare mainstream Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with the widely used 1D transient model LedaFlow in their ability to predict riser induced slug flow and to determine if it is relevant for the offshore oil and gas industry to consider making the switch from LedaFlow to CFD. Presently, the industry use relatively simple 1D-models, such as LedaFlow, to predict flow patterns in pipelines. The reduction in cost of computational power in recent years have made it relevant to compare the performance of these codes with high fidelity CFD simulations. A laboratory test facility was used to obtain data for pressure and mass flow rates for the two-phase flow of air and water. A benchmark case of slug flow served for evaluation of the numerical models. A 3D unsteady CFD simulation was performed based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) formulation and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model using the open-source CFD code OpenFOAM. Unsteady simulations using the commercial 1D LedaFlow solver were performed using the same boundary conditions and fluid properties as the CFD simulation. Both the CFD and LedaFlow model underpredicted the experimentally determined slug frequency by 22% and 16% respectively. Both models predicted a classical blowout, in which the riser is completely evacuated of water, while only a partial evacuation of the riser was observed experimentally. The CFD model had a runtime of 57 h while the LedaFlow model had a runtime of 13 min. It can be concluded that the prediction capabilities of the CFD and LedaFlow models are similar for riser-induced slug flow while the CFD model is much more computational intensive.


Author(s):  
Subrata Kumar Majumder ◽  
Sandip Ghosh ◽  
Arun Kumar Mitra ◽  
Gautam Kundu

Studies on two-phase gas-liquid co-current flow with non-Newtonian liquid system has attracted the attention of researchers over the years due to its wide-spread applications and importance in various different processes in chemical and biochemical industries, such as the process of two-phase in oil and gas wells, transportation systems of crude and refined products, and food processing in biochemical engineering and bio-reactors. This article examines the sole objective of experimental studies on gas holdup in Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid slug flow within a range of gas and liquid flowrate of 0.5×10-4 to 1.92×10-4 m3/s and 1.6×10-4 to 6.7×10-4 m3/s, respectively. The present data was analyzed with different models. To predict gas holdup, correlations have been developed for individual system with Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid. A general correlation was also developed to predict the gas holdup combing both the Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid systems. The study of the gas holdup characteristics in gas-Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid systems may give insight into a further understanding and modeling of this slug flow characteristics in industrial applications.


Author(s):  
Subrata Kumar Majumder ◽  
Sandip Ghosh ◽  
Gautam Kundu ◽  
Arun Kumar Mitra

Experimental study on two-phase pressure drop in a vertical pipe with air-Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid in slug flow regime has been carried out within a range of gas and liquid flowrate of 0.5×10-4 to 1.92×10-4 m-3/s and 1.6×10-4 to 6.7×10-4 m3/s respectively. In the present study air and four types of liquids such as water, amyl alcohol, glycerin (two different concentrations), and CMC (Sodium Carboxymethyl Cellulose) are used. The present data were analyzed by two-phase friction method. To predict the two-phase pressure drop, correlations have been developed with Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid. A general correlation was also developed to predict the two-phase pressure drop in a vertical column of diameter 0.01905 m and 3.4 m height combining both the Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquid systems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 398-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Ładosz ◽  
Philipp Rudolf von Rohr

1961 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. S. Kordyban

The paper presents a construction of a simplified model approximating the actual observed flow pattern. The resulting expressions for frictional pressure drop are found to agree fairly well with the author’s data for steam and water and the data for air and water of other investigators. The similarity with a portion of the Chenoweth-Martin correlation appears to present a logical explanation for the applicability of that correlation to slug flow.


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