Analysis of Oil-Water-Gas Three-Phase Flow in a Curved Leaking Pipe

Abstract

The onshore and offshore production of oil and natural gas is characterized by the multiphase flow in ducts and pipes, which are interconnected by various equipments such as wellhead, pumps, compressors, processing platforms, among others. The transport of oil and oil products is essential to the viability of the sector, but is susceptible to failures, that can cause great environmental damage. Considering this necessity of the transportation sector of oil and derivatives, leakage in pipelines with curved connections, are the object of study for various researchers. In this sense, this work contributes to the study of three-phase flow (oil-water-gas) in a curved pipe (90°) using Computational Fluid Dynamics. The physical domain is constituted by two tubes of 4 meters trenched by a 90° curve, with the poring whole in the curvated accessory. The mathematical model is based on a particle model, where the oil is considered as a continuous phase and the water and gas as a particulate phase. The SST (Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model was adopted. All simulations were carried out using the Ansys CFX® 12.1 commercial code. Results of the pressure, velocity and volumetric fraction of the phases are presented and discussed.

Simulation Analysis of Capacitance Method in Two-Phase Flow Concentration Measurement by Coupled Fields

“…Moreover, the study object in previous research is usually a section of straight pipe [12,13]. However, in the practical process of pneumatic conveying system, curving pipe, variable-diameter pipe and other special pipe structures are also commonly existed in transmission pipelines, and the flow characteristics around these special pipes are different from each other [14,15,16], so the performance researches of the sensors installed around these special pipes are also important. In this paper, by coupling of electrostatic and fluid fields, 3-D coupling models of straight pipe, curving pipe and variable-diameter pipes with 3 different sensor structures for concentration measurement are studied and the concentration distribution and the corresponding capacitance values of sensing electrodes can be obtained with varying time.…”