Experimental investigation of oil–water flow in the horizontal and vertical sections of a continuous transportation pipe

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 20092 - 12
• Main Authors: Yang, Jianlei, Li, Peng, Zhang, Xuhui, Lu, Xiaobing, Li, Qing, Mi, Lifei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11.10.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/4077/4082/4095; 639/766/189; Dimensional analysis; Distilled water; Experiments; Flow characteristics; Flow pattern; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mineral oils; multidisciplinary; Multiphase flow; Pipe flow; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Stainless steel; Steel pipes; Velocity; Viscosity; Water flow
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-99660-8

A series of experiments were conducted to investigate flow pattern transitions and concentration distribution during simultaneous pipe flow of oil–water two-phase flow through the horizontal and vertical sections. The flowing media applied were white mineral oil and distilled water. Superficial oil and water velocities were between 0 and 0.57 m/s. Flow pattern maps revealed that the horizontal and vertical sections of the pipe lead to different flow pattern characteristics under the same flow conditions. The original contributions of this work are that a transition mechanism for predicting the boundary between oil-in-water (O/W) flow and water-in-oil (W/O) in oil–water two-phase flow was obtained. The effects of input water cut, oil and water superficial velocities on the concentration distribution of the dispersed phase were studied. The empirical formulas for the phase holdup based on the drift-flux model were obtained. The predicted results agreed well with those of the experimental data, especially for the O/W flow pattern.