Gas-Liquid Stratified Flow in Pipeline with Phase Change

Abstract

When the natural gas with vapor is flowing in production pipeline, condensation occurs and leads to serious problems such as condensed liquid accumulation, pressure and flow rate fluctuations, and pipeline blockage. This chapter aims at studying phase change of vapor and liquid-level change during the condensing process of water-bearing natural gas characterized by coupled hydrothermal transition and phase change process. A hydrothermal mass transfer coupling model is established. The bipolar coordinate system is utilized to obtain a rectangular calculation domain. An adaptive meshing method is developed to automatically refine the grid near the gas-liquid interface. During phase change process, the temperature drop along the pipe leads to the reduction of gas mass flow rate and the rise of liquid level, which results in further pressure drop. Latent heat is released during the vapor condensing process which slows down the temperature drop. Larger temperature drop results in bigger liquid holdup while larger pressure drop causes smaller liquid holdup. The value of velocity with phase change is smaller than that without phase change while the temperature with phase change is bigger. The highest temperature locates in gas phase. But near the pipe wall the temperature of liquid region is higher than gas region.

Phase transformations in pipeline gas transportation and methods to prevent emerging complications

“…The rate of increase in the size of hydrate crystals significantly depends on the rate of creation of the free surface of the gas-water contact, i.e., on the degree of turbulization of the gas-water flow [8], [17], [23].…”