Article: Numerical investigation of slug characteristics in a horizontal air/water and air/oil pipe flow Journal: Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal (PCFD) 2018 Vol.18 No.4 pp.241 - 256 Abstract: In the present work, the transition from stratified flow to slug flow regime for air-water and air-oil two-phase flow was simulated and analysed numerically. The simulation was carried out by numerically solving a three dimensional (3D) implicit unsteady volume of fluid (VOF) model. Typical slug characteristics, such as slug length, slug translational velocity, and slug frequency were determined. The numerical results were validated by comparison with experimental results and a reasonable agreement with an error less than 8.7% was achieved. Moreover, the results from the proposed model were compared to the results obtained from three empirical correlations for the two-phase slug flow and it demonstrated a good agreement. The simulation results demonstrated that for the same boundary conditions, the characteristics in terms of slug initiation and slug growth were strongly affected by the fluid properties. The simulation results also show that for air-oil flow, the pressure drop, slug translational velocity, and slug frequency values were less than in air-water flow by 2.9%, 14.3%, and 7.9%, respectively. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: Numerical investigation of slug characteristics in a horizontal air/water and air/oil pipe flow

Authors: Abdalellah Omer Mohmmed; Mohammad Shakir Nasif; Hussain H. Al-Kayiem

Addresses: Department of Mechatronics Engineering, The Future University, 10553 Africa St, Khartoum, Sudan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

Abstract: In the present work, the transition from stratified flow to slug flow regime for air-water and air-oil two-phase flow was simulated and analysed numerically. The simulation was carried out by numerically solving a three dimensional (3D) implicit unsteady volume of fluid (VOF) model. Typical slug characteristics, such as slug length, slug translational velocity, and slug frequency were determined. The numerical results were validated by comparison with experimental results and a reasonable agreement with an error less than 8.7% was achieved. Moreover, the results from the proposed model were compared to the results obtained from three empirical correlations for the two-phase slug flow and it demonstrated a good agreement. The simulation results demonstrated that for the same boundary conditions, the characteristics in terms of slug initiation and slug growth were strongly affected by the fluid properties. The simulation results also show that for air-oil flow, the pressure drop, slug translational velocity, and slug frequency values were less than in air-water flow by 2.9%, 14.3%, and 7.9%, respectively.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; CFD; numerical simulation; slug flow; slug characteristics; volume of fluid; VOF.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2018.093575

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2018 Vol.18 No.4, pp.241 - 256

Received: 05 Mar 2016
Accepted: 07 Dec 2016
Published online: 30 Jul 2018 *

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Title: Numerical investigation of slug characteristics in a horizontal air/water and air/oil pipe flow

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