Eventos Anais de eventos
ENCIT 2018
Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
Experimental Analysis of Slug Flow Evolution in Horizontal Pipes
Submission Author:
Rafael Fabricio Alves , PR
Co-Authors:
Bruna Patricia Naidek, Rafael Fabricio Alves, Cristiane Cozin, Fausto Arinos Barbuto, Marco Jose Da Silva, Rigoberto Morales
Presenter: Rafael Fabricio Alves
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2018.CIT18-0647
Abstract
The slug flow pattern occurs in many industrial applications, especially in the oil industry, where it is the most commonly found pattern in oil and gas production lines. Slug flow is characterized by the intermittent repetition of two structures: a continuous region of liquid, called liquid slug; and a region where the gas fills much of the pipe’s cross sectional area as an elongated bubble. As the slug flow develops along the pipe, those structures have their lengths, velocities and phases fractions modified. The correct description of those structures is important in the design of oil & gas production equipment, and thus essential to understanding how they are affected by the flow development. In this context, this work describes an experimental study of liquid-gas slug flow in a 26-mm ID, 34.77-m long horizontal pipe. The evolution of the slug flow along the pipe is evaluated based on characteristic parameters, such as: elongated bubble velocity, unit cell frequency and elongated bubble and liquid slug lengths. Those parameters are measured by resistivity sensors located on five measuring stations positioned along the pipe. Based on the obtained results, the effects of gas expansion and bubble coalescence were correlated with the main variations observed with the slug flow development along the pipe.
Keywords
Two-phase Flow, Slug Flow, slug flow development, horizontal pipes
