Analytical Investigation by Using the Two-fluid-model to Study the Interfacial Behavior of Air-water Horizontal Stratified Flow

TL;DR

This study uses a two-fluid model to analyze the interfacial behavior of air-water stratified flow in horizontal pipelines, validating existing correlations and highlighting the need for improved models for safer pipeline operation.

Contribution

It provides an analytical investigation of stratified flow using experimental data and compares it with previous correlations, identifying gaps for future improvement.

Findings

Existing correlations show significant differences from experimental data.

The study validates some aspects of previous models but indicates the need for better correlations.

Experimental visualization data supports the analytical analysis.

Abstract

In the chemical, petroleum and nuclear industries, pipelines are often used to transport fluids from one process site to another one. The understanding of the fluids behavior inside the pipelines is the most important consideration for the engineers and scientists. From the previous studies, there are several two-phase flow patterns in horizontal pipe. One of them is stratified flow pattern, which is characterized by the liquid flowing along the bottom of the pipe and the gas moving above it cocurrently. Another flow patterns are slug and plug flow patterns. This kind of flow triggers the damage in pipelines, such as corrosion, abrasion, and blasting pipe. Therefore, slug and plug flow patterns are undesirable in pipelines, and the flow is maintained at the stratified flow condition for safety reason. In this paper, the analytical-based study on the experiment of the stratified flow pattern in a 26 mm i.d. horizontal pipe is presented. The experiment is performed to develop a high quality database of the stratified two-phase flow pattern. The experimental data were obtained from the visualization data by using a high speed-video camera and were processed by using digital image processing technique. Analytical method of two-fluid model was used to study the interfacial behavior of the flow. The aim of this study is to validate the previous correlations which are proposed by other researchers. The results show that there are still many significant differences among each other. Hence, better correlation should be proposed in the future. The discussion on the basis of the comparison between the previous correlations with the present analytical data is presented.