Film Profiles Behind Liquid Slugs.pdfVIP

Film Profiles Behind Liquid Slugs in Gas-Liquid Pipe Flow Martin Cook and Masud Behnia School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 2052 A comprehensive one-dimensional fully coupled hydrodynamic treatment of the film profiles behind liquid slugs in horizontal and inclined gas - liquid slug flow is presented. Experiments were peqonned in horizontal air - water pipes 32 and 50 mm in diameter, the smaller also being inclined to an angle of 5 degrees. Time traces of film thickness were produced with the use of a wire-probe technique. The experimental results are compared against the theoly presented here, as well as previously reported hydrody- namic models. It is concluded that the film profiles calculated by the use of one-dimen- sional models are highly sensitive to the choice of input variables, for example, the slug translational velocity; however, good agreement is achievable provided that consistent hydrodynamic equations and correct input variables are used. It is hoped that the work presented here will influence future mechanistic models of slug flow. Introduction When a gas and a liquid flow concurrently in a pipe a number of different flow patterns or regimes may be present, depending largely on the superficial velocities of both phases. The slug-flow regime is found commonly in crude oil/gas multiphase pipelines, boiler tubes, and heat exchangers. It is initiated when waves of a stratified liquid layer grow until they reach the top of the pipe. Once this has occurred the gas propels a “slug” of liquid rapidly down the pipe. Immedi- ately preceding the slug, liquid is scooped up from the strati- fied liquid film layer, while behind the slug the liquid level drops until the whole process is repeated. The slug length becomes stable as the rate of liquid picked up from the preceding film equals the rate of liquid shed at the rear of the slug. The resulting flow pattern is a ser