Study On Flow Pattern Of Multiphase Flow In Horizontal Pipes

In the petroleum industry, oil, water and natural gas are generally produced at the same time and sent in the form of mixture. According to the different combinations of the flow medium, we can divide it into gas-liquid flow, oil-gas flow and oil-gas-water flow. When the mixture flows in pipeline, different flow patterns will be formed varying with various parameters' changes. The dynamics and heat transfer characteristic is different for different flow patterns of multiphase flow. Therefore it is very important to study the flow regimes for the theoretical research of multiphase flow and the measurement of parameters.Paper introduces the flow patterns of the gas-liquid flow, including gas-water flow and oil-gas flow,and oil-gas-liquid flow as well as the major research method.The influence of liquid flow and gas flow for the changes of flow patterns is observed through experiments, and simulate the flow regimes in pipeline with numerical simulation software FLUENT.Through analyzing the characteristics of multiphase flow and the features of use of the multiphase models in FLUENT, the VOF model is selected to simulate the flow regimes of multiphase flow in pipe. Paper uses the unsteady, implicit, segregated slover to carry out the numerical calculation and does the qualitative analysis for the flow patterns in pipes.The simulation results show that VOF model can be used to simulate the stratified flow, stratified wavy flow, bubble flow, plug flow, slug flow and annular flow. Under the condition that gas flow increases or liquid flow reduces, changes of the flow pattern are the same as experiment conclusions. Comparing the simulation results of gas-liquid flow with the Mandhane Flow Pattern figure, oil-gas flow with the Brill Flow Pattern figure,and three-phase flow with the Lee Flow Pattern figure, we know that they are approximately consistent respectively.