Vortex and Oil Distribution of Oil-Water Annular Flow through Ball Valve

Abstract

The study on the flow behave inside of a ball valve is important for heavy crude oil transportation. Owe to the fast progress of the numerical technique, it becomes an effective way to observe the flows inside a valve and to analyze the flow structure of the oil-water core annular flow. In the present study, the simulation of the oil-water core annular flowing through the valve is conducted by combined the VOF and CSF model, and the effects of open rate on vortex and oil distribution characteristics are analyzed. The simulated data is a satisfactory match with empirical value and the experimental results. The results show that there are lots of vortexes inside and behind the valve, the coordinate values of the vortex decrease and the aggregation rate increases with an increase in open rate. As the input velocity increases, the change rate of the vortex position is greater, and the oil aggregation rate decreases, the highly viscous oil with has greater aggregation rate after flow through the valve, and the variation of the vortex core position is relatively slow. As the vortex flow across the oil core, the oil will be scattered and contributes to the instability of the annular flow.

Keywords

• the ball valve
• oil-water annular flow
• vof
• vortex
• oil phase distribution
• numerical simulation