Explore the vast range of titles available.

Gas–oil–water three-phase slug flows in pipes commonly exist in the oil and gas industry as oil fields are becoming mature and water production is becoming inevitable. Although studies on multiphase flows in pipes have been ongoing for decades, most previous research has focused on gas–liquid or oil–water two-phase flows, with limited studies on gas–liquid–liquid flows. This leads to limited modeling studies on gas–liquid–liquid flows. One factor contributing to the complexity of the gas–liquid–liquid flow is the mixing between the oil and water phases, which have closer fluid properties and low interfacial tension. Restrictions or piping components play a crucial role in altering phase mixing. Unfortunately, modeling studies that consider the effects of these restrictions are limited due to the scarcity of experimental research. To address this gap, we conducted experimental studies on a gas–liquid–liquid flow downstream of a restriction and developed a new mechanistic modeling approach to predict the pressure gradient. Our model focuses on the flow pattern where the oil and water phases are partially mixed. This work emphasizes the modeling approach. The model evaluation results show that the model outperforms other existing models, with an average absolute relative error of 6.71%. Additionally, the parametric study shows that the new modeling approach effectively captures the effects of restriction size, water cut, and gas and liquid flow rates on the three-phase slug flow pressure gradient in horizontal pipes. Most previous slug flow modeling work assumes either a stratified flow or fully dispersed flow between the oil and water phases. This work provides a novel perspective in modeling a three-phase slug flow in which the oil and water phases are partially mixed. In addition, this novel approach to modeling the restriction effects on the pressure gradient paves the way for future modeling for different types of piping components or restrictions.

This article discusses the use of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for monitoring gas–liquid two-phase slug flow in horizontal pipes, using standard telecommunication fiber optics connected to a DAS integrator for data acquisition. The experiments were performed in a 14 m long, 5 cm diameter transparent PVC pipe with a fiber cable helically wrapped around the pipe. Using mineral oil and compressed air, the system captured various flow rates and gas–oil ratios. New algorithms were developed to characterize slug flow using DAS data, including slug frequency, translational velocity, and the lengths of slug body, slug unit, and the liquid film region that had never been discussed previously. This study employed a high-speed camera next to the fiber cable sensing section for validation purposes and achieved a good correlation among the measurements under all conditions tested. Compared to traditional multiphase flow sensors, this technology is non-intrusive and offers continuous, real-time measurement across long distances and in harsh environments, such as subsurface or downhole conditions. It is cost-effective, particularly where multiple measurement points are required. Characterizing slug flow in real time is crucial to many industries that suffer slug-flow-related issues. This research demonstrated the DAS’s potential to characterize slug flow quantitively. It will offer the industry a more optimal solution for facility design and operation and ensure safer operational practices.

The pipeline system is widely used in marine engineering, and the formation mechanism and flow patterns of two-phase slug flows are of great significance for the optimal design of and vibration prevention in a complex pipeline system. Aiming at the above problems, this paper proposes a modeling and solving method for gas-liquid slug flows. First, a VOF-PLIC-based coupling gas-liquid slug flow transport model is conducted. Second, to reduce the fuzzy boundary between the gas-liquid coupling interfaces, an artificial compression term is added to the transport equations, and the formation and evolution mechanism of severe slugging flow in piping systems is investigated. The pressure pulsation and gas content characteristics of the gas-liquid coupling process are explored. Research results found that the slugging phenomenon occurs at the gas-liquid interface, where liquid slugging frequency reaches its peak. The pipeline system has prominent periodic characteristics of the slugging phenomenon, and the period decreases when the gas-phase converted speed rises; pressure fluctuation amplitude increases, and the gas-phase velocity change is the inducing factor for the drastic change of pressure fluctuation. The research results can offer theoretical references for optimal designs of and vibration prevention in marine pipeline systems.

The hydrodynamic characteristic of the multiphase mixed-transport pipeline is essential to guarantee safe and sustainable oil–gas transport when extracting offshore oil and gas resources. The gas–liquid two-phase transport phenomena lead to unstable flow, which significantly impacts pipeline deformation and can cause damage to the pipeline system. The formation mechanism of the mixed-transport pipeline slug flow faces significant challenges. This paper studies the formation mechanism of two-phase slug flows in mixed-transport pipelines with multiple inlet structures. A VOF-based gas–liquid slug flow mechanical model with multiple inlets is set up. With the volumetric force source term modifying strategy, the formation mechanism and flow patterns of slug flows are obtained. The research results show that the presented strategy and optimization design method can effectively simulate the formation and evolution trends of gas–liquid slug flows. Due to the convective shock process in the eight branch pipes, a bias flow phenomenon exists in the initial state and causes flow patterns to be unsteady. The gas–liquid mixture becomes relatively uniform after the flow field stabilizes. The design of the bent pipe structure results in an unbalanced flow velocity distribution and turbulence viscosity on both sides, presenting a banded distribution characteristic. The bend structure can reduce the bias phenomenon and improve sustainable transport stability. These findings provide theoretical guidance for fluid dynamics research in offshore oil and gas and chemical processes, and also offer technical support for mixed-transport pipeline sustainability transport and optimization design of channel structures.

The accurate prediction of pressure loss for two-phase slug flow in pipes with a simple and powerful methodology has been desired. The calculation of pressure loss has generally been performed by complicated mechanistic models, most of which require the iteration of many variables. The objective of this study is to optimize the previously proposed simplified slug flow model for horizontal pipes, extending the applicability to turbulent flow conditions, i.e., high mixture Reynolds number and near horizontal pipes. The velocity field previously measured by particle image velocimetry further supports the suggested slug flow model which neglects the pressure loss in the liquid film region. A suitable prediction of slug characteristics such as slug liquid holdup and translational velocity (or flow coefficient) is required to advance the accuracy of calculated pressure loss. Therefore, the proper correlations of slug liquid holdup, flow coefficient, and friction factor are identified and utilized to calculate the pressure gradient for horizontal and near horizontal pipes. The optimized model presents a fair agreement with 2191 existing experimental data (0.001 ≤ μL ≤ 0.995 Pa∙s, 7 ≤ ReM ≤ 227,007 and −9 ≤ θ ≤ 9), showing −3% and 0.991 as values of the average relative error and the coefficient of determination, respectively.

This paper studied the heat transfer characteristics of the upward vertical two-phase flow of air and water/SiO 2 nanofluid under constant heat flux conditions with a slug flow regime. An experimental setup has been erected. The test section included a vertical copper pipe with an 11 mm inner diameter and a 1.6 m length. The concentration range of nano-SiO 2 in the nanofluids was reported as 0.1–0.5 mass%. Also, 0.5 mass% of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was added to the base fluid as a surfactant in all of the tests. In order to control the slug flow regime according to the Beggs and Brill flow pattern map in the vertical pipe, liquid Reynolds numbers were controlled from 2100 to 9600 and gas Reynolds numbers were 820 to 1650. The results indicated higher heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and Nusselt numbers of air/aqueous nanosilica nanofluids relative to the two-phase flow of air/water with the same regime. In two-phase flows with maximum Reynolds numbers, the upmost HTC was obtained at 0.5 mass% of nanosilica. The simulation results presented an average relative error less than 10%, which indicates that the experimental and simulation results are in good agreement. Graphical abstract

Uncovering dynamic nonlinearity of slug flow with structural mutation constitutes a challenging problem of significant importance. Rescaled range permutation entropy has been recently introduced as a novel measure for the complexity of chaotic time series with extreme volatility by assigning the ratio of range and standard deviation as the weight for each extracted vector. However, previous work is only limited to the analysis of typical chaotic systems. The intrinsic advancement and the potentiality in the practical application of the algorithm still need to be investigated. Therefore, we firstly conduct simulations on characterizing impulsive signal to demonstrate that rescaled range permutation entropy is more appropriate to characterize the extreme volatility of system. In addition, a practical application in experimental signals analysis of gas–liquid two-phase slug flow is discussed in detail. The result shows that the rescaled range permutation entropy has a significant discernibility for the flow structure sudden change and paves a new way on investigating the dynamic complexity of slug flow.

Improvement of the separation efficiency of the phases at the slug catcher has been always questionable. In this study, gas–liquid two-phase flow is simulated numerically in vessel-type slug catcher using the volume of fluid method. In order to validate the obtained numerical results, slug flow is simulated in a duct and the generated results are compared with the experimental data of other investigators. The comparison of the results showed that the agreement between our simulation and other experimental results is encouraging. The results revealed that the high velocity of slug flow which could damage the duct is reduced as it entered into the slug catcher, and became wavy or stratified. Moreover, the pressure drop across the slug is reduced to the minimum value and stabilized in entire system. Results reveal that the optimized length of the slug catcher to reduce the velocity and pressure fluctuations is equal to 4m. The effect of the baffle on slug behavior is also considered in the results. Results indicate that the presence of the baffle on the slug catcher leads to a positive effect on the pressure drop. Also, it is observed that the maximum mixture velocity at the outlet of the simulated slug catcher is 40% lower than the slug catcher without the baffle.

Continuous tubular crystallizers that can provide high yield and better control of crystal size would be of great interest to the industrial crystallization process. However, most continuous crystallizer designs face challenges either due to surface fouling or crystal breakage. In this paper, we explore the ability of slug-flow cooling crystallizers to continuously generate acetaminophen crystals using silicone oil as the continuous phase. Each slug acts as a crystallizer, and the crystals formed inside the dispersed phase avoid encrustation. Three crystallizer configurations were studied at a wide range of supersaturation and flow rates. It was found that a narrow crystal size distribution can be achieved at high flow rates and high supersaturation. Additionally, the average crystal size and the crystallization yield increased with supersaturation and residence time. The configuration of the tubular crystallizer was found to influence the crystallization yield by affecting the internal mixing in the slugs. With further studies, slug-flow cooling crystallizer can be developed for continuous crystallization of crystals with a narrow size distribution, polymorphic purity, and good yield.

From the viewpoint of resource and energy-saving, the high extraction rate of alternating liquid–liquid flow (slug flow) is important given that it enables its novel use in extraction. Additionally, a specific extraction rate must be maintained for the practical application of slug flow to chemical extraction. Although slug flow is easily generated, controlling the slug length is difficult. In this study, two diaphragm pumps were interlocked to generate a slug flow. By linking the movement of the diaphragms of the two pumps, we could successfully and efficiently control the slug length, and the interlocking diaphragms could easily control the length of the aqueous and oil phase segments of the slug flow. The lengths of the aqueous and oil phases of the slug flow, which could not be quantitatively controlled, could be expressed in terms of the linear velocity of the liquid, the kinematic viscosity, and the tube diameter using the Reynolds number. This relation aids the extraction equipment design using slug flow. Furthermore, the mass transfer coefficient of extraction obtained using the slug flow generated by the developed device was similar to that obtained by the conventional method of a syringe pump. These results indicate that slug flow can be successfully applied to extraction processes.