Eventos Anais de eventos
ENCIT 2016
16th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
INFLUENCE ANALYSIS OF SLIGHT DIRECTION CHANGES ON THE TRANSITION FROM TWO-PHASE GAS-LIQUID SLUG FLOW TO STRATIFIED FLOW
Submission Author:
Rafael Fabricio Alves , PR
Co-Authors:
Fábio Schneider, PAULO HENRIQUE DIAS DOS SANTOS, Fausto Arinos Barbuto, Dalton Bertoldi, Marco Jose Da Silva, Rigoberto Morales
Presenter: Rafael Fabricio Alves
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2016.CIT2016-0309
Abstract
Gas-liquid two-phase flow is very common in industrial applications, especially in the oil and gas, chemical, and nuclear industries. Different flow patterns take place along the flowlines, as long as the operating conditions such as the flow rates of the phases, the pipe diameter and physical properties of the fluids change. Slug flow is the most frequent pattern observed in oil and gas production operations. This flow is characterised by the continuous alternation of regions of liquid (liquid slugs) and regions where the gas phase dominates (elongated bubbles). Due to this intermittent behaviour, slug flow causes undesired operational issues on industrial facilities, such as vibration, corrosion, erosion and high pressure drops. Also, scenarios where the pipe stands slight changes of direction due to irregular seabed topographies are commonly found. In this context, this work presents an experimental study on two-phase gas-liquid slug flows in a pipe with a slight change of direction, represented by a horizontal section followed by a inclined downward section. The experiments were performed at NUEM (Multiphase Flow Research Center at UTFPR). The flow initiation and development took place under controlled conditions and its characteristic parameters were measured with resistive sensors installed at four sections of the pipe. Based on the experimental results, the influence of a slight change of direction on the transition between slug flow and stratified flow in the inclined downward section was evaluated.
Keywords
Two-phase Flow, Slug Flow, Stratified flow, Flow with change of direction
