Eventos Anais de eventos
ENCIT 2020
18th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
Experimental Study for Characterization of Oil-Water Flow Patterns in Horizontal Pipes Based on Visualization and Pressure-Gradient Analysis
Submission Author:
Hermes Vazzoler Junior , ES
Co-Authors:
Hermes Vazzoler Junior, Daiane Iceri, Juliana Cenzi, Carlos Keiichi Tanikawa da Silva, Charlie van der Geest, Oscar Mauricio Hernandez Rodriguez, Marcelo Souza de Castro
Presenter: Hermes Vazzoler Junior
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2020.CIT20-0601
Abstract
The characterization of liquid-liquid flow patterns is important for the oil industry, especially in situations where water is used as an artificial means of facilitating the oil production and transport. This article investigates the flow of oil-water in horizontal steel pipes, with 51.5mm internal diameter (i.d.), evaluating the effects of viscosity on the formation of flow patterns. The mixture pipe flow was studied at two different average temperatures, 26ºC and 45ºC, which provided different viscosity and density ratios. The experimental procedure consisted of fixing a given superficial oil velocity with subsequent variation of the water superficial velocity, where flow patterns, pressure gradients and other parameters were recorded. The observed flows were recorded with a high-speed camera. The flow patterns were initially visually classified, according to the classification proposed by Ibarra et al. (2014), and subsequently, this classification was refined by analyzing the variation of pressure-gradient. When analyzing the experiments conducted with oil of lower viscosity, neither Trallero’s (1995) nor Ibarra et al. (2014) classifications of flow patterns were in accordance with the experimental pressure-gradient curves. It was noticed that at low superficial velocities of water there was a pressure-gradient drop attributed to a change in the flow pattern. The analysis of these flow patterns showed the possible need to modify the flow-pattern classification model proposed by Ibarra et al. (2014), adding the flow pattern DO/W&O, observed by Tan et al. (2015). The theoretical model of Trallero (1995) showed unsatisfactory predictions of the areas of occurrence of some flow patterns. The dimensionless flow-patterns map proposed by Ibarra et al. (2015) was somehow consistent with the experimental results the flow with low oil viscosity. However, in the experiments with higher oil viscosity, there was a significant discrepancy
Keywords
Two-phase Flow, oil-water flow, Flow patterns, horizontal pipe, oil viscosity effect
DOWNLOAD PDF VIEW PRESENTATION
