Liquid-Liquid Flow Pattern Prediction Using Relevant Dimensionless Parameter Groups

Abstract

Accurate predictions of flow patterns in liquid-liquid flow are critical to the successful design and operation of industrial and geo-energy systems where two liquids are jointly transported. Unfortunately, there is no unified flow pattern map, because all published maps are based on limited ranges of dimensional parameters. Dimensional analysis was performed on oil-water horizontal flows, to obtain some relevant dimensionless parameter groups (DPG) for constructing flow pattern maps (FPM). The following combinations of DPG were used: (i) the ratio of mixture Reynolds number to Eötvös number versus water fraction, (ii) the ratio of Weber number to Eötvös number versus water fraction, (iii) the mixture Froude number versus water fraction, (iv) the water Froude number versus oil Froude number, (v) the ratio of gravity force to viscous force versus water fraction. From twelve published experimental studies, 2696 data points were gathered and analysed covering a variety of flow patterns including stratified, stratified mixed, dispersed oil in water, dispersed water in oil, annular and slug flows. Based on the performed analysis, it was found that flow patterns could occupy more than one isolated region on the DPG-based flow pattern map. None of the combinations of DPG can mark out all the considered flow patterns, however, some combinations of DPG are particularly suitable for marking out the regions associated with some flow patterns.

Mechanism of transition between separated and non-separated oil-water flows in inclined pipe

“…Energy and environment are the hot issues in current research (Aksoy et al, 2023; Beni and Esmaeili, 2019; Esmaeili and Saremnia, 2018; He et al, 2023; Iqbal et al, 2023; Irshad et al, 2023; Saremnia et al, 2016; Tamashiro et al, 2023; Wang et al, 2023), among which oil resources is closely related to world economy and politics (Candila et al, 2021). Oil–water flows in horizontal and inclined pipes widely existed in the oil industry (Hu et al, 2020; Osundare et al, 2020; Zhang et al, 2020). Understanding the oil–water flow pattern is important for the design and optimization of production, transportation, and processing facilities (Tan et al, 2018).…”

Experimental investigation of liquid–liquid flow in an inclined pipe using dimensionless numbers

“…Their study showed that none of the combined dimensionless numbers are appropriate for describing flow pattern maps. [ 21 ] The transition condition between flow patterns has been studied in the past by researchers in different flow conduit paths. [ 22 ] In many of such studies, the transition condition has been defined by means of dimensionless numbers.…”

Application of core annular flow for oil transportation in different pipe configurations using computational fluid dynamics

“…Furthermore, many phenomena that occur in the internal flow are also heavily influenced by Re. However, the similar Re showed unsatisfying result of current scale up simulation for both An experimental study about liquid-liquid flow pattern prediction, using pipe diameter of 10-100 mm states that the multiphase flow behaviors in small diameter pipes are significantly different from that in the pipes of conventional or industrial scales, as the Eötvös numbers in the small pipes are small hence the interfacial tension is critically significant (Osundare et al, 2020). Previous study also reported that behaviors of multiphase flows in large diameter pipes (or measured as diameter bigger than 100 mm) pipes could be substantially different from that in smaller pipes (Cheng et al, 1998).…”