Air–water: two phase flow behavior in a horizontal pipe using computational fluids dynamics (CFD)

Abstract

Two-phase flow is an area of primary interest, particularly for the petroleum industry, where a fair amount of these kinds of flows can be found in the production of oil wells. This study refers to the evaluation of two-phase flow airwater through a horizontal pipe of 0.0508m (2in) diameter and 1.016m (40in) length. A 3D CFD approach was used for reproducing the behavior of the dispersed bubble, stratified smooth and slug flow in a horizontal pipe. The pressure drop and liquid holdup associated with it were estimated. Data of the superficial velocities of the liquid and gas were taken from the literature; and then many CFD simulations were carried out using different multiphase flow models. The results were validated with the available experimental data from the literature. For the case in which the liquid is the continuous phase and the gas behaves as the dispersed one, the results show that the bubble disperse flow behaves homogeneously. In these simulations, for a 0.01mm gas bubble diameter the pressure drop presented a deviation of 6.12% over that reported in the literature. For the liquid holdup value a difference of 0.001% was obtained. An inhomogeneous approach with the free surface model reproduced satisfactorily the stratified smooth behavior. In addition, the influences of increasing water superficial velocity on the energy losses and the liquid holdup were obtained. However, for the studied numerical domain, the slug flow pattern could not be reproduced. All these results above allowed us to establish the great applicability of CFD modeling in the problem resolution of two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe.

Study of liquid–gas two-phase flow in horizontal pipes using high speed filming and computational fluid dynamics

“…, several studies were conducted in terms of liquid gas two-phase flow. Authors such as Hernandez-Perez [14], Vazquez [15], Mazumder [16], and Dakshinamoothy [17] have performed CFD analysis of two-phase flow, but not all of these studies correspond to horizontal straight pipes. Combined studies where there is a comparison between experimental and numerical data were performed by Belt [18], De Schepper [19], Muñoz-Cobo [20] and Abdulkadir [21].…”

Experimental and CFD Investigation into Using Inverted U-Tube for Gas Entrainment

“…The use of an inverted U-tube is an innovative method for entraining such gases, which may lead to the consumption of less patterns. The air/water flow in a horizontal pipe was investigated numerically by Vásquez et al [16]. Different multiphase flow models were used for obtaining the flow patterns and the proposed CFD model was validated.…”