An Experimental Study For Oil-Water Two-Phase Flow In Horizontal Pipelines

Oil-water two phase flow is frequently encountered in Petroleum industry. Facilities can run safely and economically only by knowing the flow characteristics of oil-water two phase flow. However, people have not understood it clearly because of its complexity, and research about oil-water two phase flow is not carried out to the same extent of liquid-gas two phase flow. Therefore, the study on oil-water two phase flow is of great scientific significance and important value for practical application. This paper studied the oil-water two phase flow characteristics thoroughly from both experiments and theoretical investigation. The flowing main parts are included:Two-phase flow patterns for horizontal oil-water flow system were defined and distinguished by visualization, then flow pattern map was developed. The transition mechanisms between different flow regimes were analyzed and discussed theoretically, which might be used to predict the transition boundaries with good accuracy compared to the experimental data.In addition, the models of pressure loss for horizontal oil-water flow system were also developed. Two fluid model was used to calculate the pressure loss for stratified flow pattern. This paper gives the 3-layer model to predict the pressure loss of 3-layer flow pattern. Besides, the model for calculating the pressure loss of complex flow patterns was also developed based on the flow pattern restriction. And homogeneous model was used to predict the pressure loss for water-dispersed flow regimes. All the results of the pressure model can match well with the experimental data.