Pressure Loss in a Horizontal Two-Phase Slug Flow

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Kabiri-Samani ◽  
S. M. Borghei

The study of air-water, two-phase flows in hydraulic structures such as pressurized flow tunnels, culverts, sewer pipes, junctions, and similar conduits is of great importance for design purposes. Air can be provided by vortices at water intakes, pumping stations, aerators, steep channels, etc. Under certain conditions, air may also be introduced into pressurized intake systems, which may form large bubbles in portions of the pipe. The bubbles may, in turn, cause an unstable slug flow, or other flow patterns, that leads to sever periodic transient pressure. In this paper, an experimental model (a circular and transparent pipeline, 90 mm in ID and 10 m in length) is used to predict pressure loss in a pipeline or tunnel involving resonance and shock waves introduced by a two-phase air-water slug flow. For this purpose, differential pressure transducers were used to measure pressure loss variations in time along the pipeline at different sections and for different air/water flow rates. The experimental results of pressure loss for different hydraulic and geometric properties indicate that Weber number (We), Froude number (Fr), and air concentration (C) are the most important parameters affecting pressure loss. Finally, relations for forecasting pressure loss in these situations are presented as a function of flow characteristics.

2005 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Kabiri-Samani ◽  
S. M. Borghei ◽  
M. H. Saidi

Air in water flow is a frequent phenomenon in hydraulic structures. The main reason for air entrainment is vortices at water intakes, pumping stations, tunnel inlets, and so on. The accumulated air, in a conduit, can evolve to a different flow pattern, from stratified to pressurized. Among different patterns, slug is most complex with extreme pressure variations. Due to lack of firm relations between pressure and influential parameters, study of slug flow is very important. Based on an experimental model, pressure fluctuations inside a circular, horizontal, and inclined pipe (90mm inside diameter and 10m long) carrying tow-phase air-water slug flow has been studied. Pressure fluctuations were sampled simultaneously at different sections, and longitudinal positions. The pressure fluctuations were measured using differential pressure transducers (DPT), while behavior of the air slug was studied using a digital camera. The objective of the paper is to predict the pressure variation in a pipeline or tunnel, involving resonance and shock waves experimentally. The results show that the more intensive phase interaction commences stronger fluctuations. It is shown, that the air-water mixture entering the pipe during rapid filling of surcharging can cause a tremendous pressure surge in the system and may eventually cause failure of the system (e.g., the maximum pressure inside the pipe would reach up to 10 times of upstream hydrostatic pressure as suggested by others too). Relations for forecasting pressure in these situations are presented as a function of flow characteristics, pipe geometry, longitudinal, and cross-sectional positions and head water.


Author(s):  
John Wesley Coleman

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation of two-phase pressure loss of R134a in microchannel headers using various end-cut techniques. Novel experimental techniques and test sections were developed to enable the accurate determination of the minor losses without obfuscating the problem with a lengthwise pressure gradient. This technique represents a departure from approaches used by other investigators that have extrapolated minor losses from air-water experiments and the combined effects of expansion, contraction, deceleration, and lengthwise pressure gradients. Pressure losses were recorded over the entire range of qualities from 100% vapor to 100% liquid. In addition, the tests were conducted for five different refrigerant mass fluxes between 185 kg/m2-s and 785 kg/m2-s using two differnt end-cut techniques. More than 790 data points were recorded to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the effects of mass flux and quality on minor pressure losses. High accuracy instrumentation such as coriolis mass flowmeters, RTDs, pressure transducers, and real-time data analyses were used to ensure accuracy in the results. The results show that many of the commonly used correlations for estimating two-phase pressure losses significantly underpredict the pressure losses found in compact microchannel tube headers. Furthermore, the results show that the end-cut technique can substantially affect the pressure losses in microchannel headers. A new model for estimating the pressure loss in microchannel headers is presented and a comparison of the end-cut techniques on the minor losses is reported.


Author(s):  
Hideo Ide ◽  
Kentaro Satonaka ◽  
Tohru Fukano

Experiments were performed to obtain, analyze and clarify the mean void fraction, the mean liquid holdup, and the liquid slug velocity and the air-water two-phase flow patterns in horizontal rectangular microchannels, with the dimensions equal to 1.0 mm width × 0.1 mm depth, and 1.0 mm width × 0.2 mm depth, respectively. The flow patterns such as bubble flow, slug flow and annular flow were observed. The microchannel data showed similar data patterns compared to those in minichannels with the width of 1∼10mm and the depth of 1mm which we had previously reported on. However, in a 1.0 × 0.1 mm microchannel, the mean holdup and the base film thickness in annular flow showed larger values because the effects of liquid viscosity and surface tension on the holdup and void fraction dominate. The remarkable flow characteristics of rivulet flow and the flow with a partial dry out of the channel inner wall were observed in slug flow and annular flow patterns in the microchannel of 0.1 mm depth.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Gopal ◽  
W. P. Jepson

This paper reports the application of novel, digital image analysis techniques in the study of slug flow characteristics, under dynamic conditions in two-phase gas-liquid mixtures. Water and an oil of viscosity 18 cP were used for the liquid phase and carbon dioxide was used for the gas phase. Flow in a 75-mm i.d., 10-m long acrylic pipeline system was studied. Images of slugs were recorded on video by S-VHS cameras, using an audio-visual mixer. Each image was then digitized frame-by-frame and analyzed on a SGI™ workstation. Detailed slug characteristics, including liquid film heights, slug translational velocity, mixing length, and, slug length, were obtained.


Author(s):  
Suat Bagci ◽  
Adel Al-Shareef

Abstract Two-phase flow in hilly terrain pipelines can cause significant practical operating problems. When slugs flow in a hilly terrain pipeline that contains sections of different inclinations they undergo a change of length and slug flow characteristics as the slug move from section to section. In addition, slugs can be generated at low elbows, dissipate at top elbows and shrink or grow in length as they travel along the pipe. A mathematical model and a computer program was developed to simulate these phenomena. The model was based on the sink/source concept at the pipeline connections. A connection between two pipeline sections of different slopes was conveniently called elbow. An elbow accumulates liquid as a sink, and releases liquid as a source. The sink/source has a characteristic capacity of its own. This capacity is positive if the liquid can indeed be accumulated at the elbow or negative if the liquid is actually drained away from the elbow. This type of treatment effectively isolates the flow upstream from an elbow from that downstream, while still allowing flow interactions between two detailed pipeline sections. The hydrodynamic flow model was also used to calculate the film liquid holdup in horizontal and inclined pipelines. The model can successfully predict the liquid film holdup if the liquid film height is assumed to be uniform through the gas pocket. Many other models were used to calculate all the needed parameters to perform the sink/source model. The overall effect of a hill or terrain on slug flow depends on the operating flow rates and pipeline configurations. For special case of near constant slug frequency corresponding to moderately high superficial liquid and gas velocities, this effect was found to be small. The changes in the film characteristics between two adjacent pipeline sections were found to be mostly responsible for the pseudo-slug generation, slug growth and dissipation in the downstream pipeline sections. The film liquid holdup decreased with increasing pipe diameter. The unit slug length increased at the upstream inclined pipes and decreased at the downstream inclined pipes with increasing pipe diameter. The possibility of pseudo-slug generation was increased at large pipe diameters even at high sink capacities. At low sink capacities, no pseudo-slugs were generated at high superficial velocities. The slug flow characteristics was more effected by low superficial gas and liquid velocities, large pipe diameters and shallow pipeline inclinations.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 842
Author(s):  
Tea-Woo Kim ◽  
Nam-Sub Woo ◽  
Sang-Mok Han ◽  
Young-Ju Kim

The accurate prediction of pressure loss for two-phase slug flow in pipes with a simple and powerful methodology has been desired. The calculation of pressure loss has generally been performed by complicated mechanistic models, most of which require the iteration of many variables. The objective of this study is to optimize the previously proposed simplified slug flow model for horizontal pipes, extending the applicability to turbulent flow conditions, i.e., high mixture Reynolds number and near horizontal pipes. The velocity field previously measured by particle image velocimetry further supports the suggested slug flow model which neglects the pressure loss in the liquid film region. A suitable prediction of slug characteristics such as slug liquid holdup and translational velocity (or flow coefficient) is required to advance the accuracy of calculated pressure loss. Therefore, the proper correlations of slug liquid holdup, flow coefficient, and friction factor are identified and utilized to calculate the pressure gradient for horizontal and near horizontal pipes. The optimized model presents a fair agreement with 2191 existing experimental data (0.001 ≤ μL ≤ 0.995 Pa∙s, 7 ≤ ReM ≤ 227,007 and −9 ≤ θ ≤ 9), showing −3% and 0.991 as values of the average relative error and the coefficient of determination, respectively.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (0) ◽  
pp. _G050056-1-_G050056-5
Author(s):  
Hisato MINAGAWA ◽  
Takahiro YASUDA ◽  
Shingo SUGIMOTO

Author(s):  
Yicheng Li ◽  
Mirollah Hosseini ◽  
Hossein Arasteh ◽  
Davood Toghraie ◽  
Sara Rostami

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samir Moujaes ◽  
Erika Sleight

Abstract A theoretical model for steady state two-phase vertical upward flow in cylindrical channels is presented. A comparison of the results of this model for a circular channel as well as a reformulated rectangular channel model is partially made with experimental data in the literature. It shows that in general the model predicts the flow characteristics somewhat better in the bubbly regime than the slug flow indicating the need to look further into some of the constitutive relationships used to close the model in this regime.


Author(s):  
Carlos E. F. do Amaral ◽  
Fernando Castillo ◽  
Marco José da Silva ◽  
Eduardo N. Santos ◽  
Rigoberto E. M. Morales

Two phase flow occurs in many applications in industry, mainly in the transport of mixtures in pipes. The identification of these patterns is of fundamental importance in the design of piping systems and equipments. In this scenario, this work proposes an experimental study to identify multiphase flow patterns of water and air in horizontal tubes. The study was developed using an experimental circuit of 26 mm diameter and 9.2 m length pipe, at Thermal Sciences Lab at Federal Technological University of Paraná. To characterize the parameters one used an intrusive mesh electrodes sensor, a tomographic technique that allows details of the distribution of phases with good temporal and special resolution. Tests were conducted using several experimental settings of water and gas superficial flows, mostly with slug flow characteristics. Measurements were compared to models and the temporal void fraction series were analyzed to produce bubble velocity and frequency information, showing the characteristics for each two-phase pattern.


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