Effect of Changing Crude Oil Grade on Slug Characteristics and Flow Induced Mechanical Stresses in Pipes

Abstract

Slug multiphase flow is known to be the most prevalent regime because of its extensive encounters associated with chaotic behaviour, complexity and instability that cause significant fluctuations in operating conditions and thus lead to undesirable effects. In this study, the effect of varying crude oil grades on slug characteristics is numerically investigated. A partitioned one-way coupling framework of fluid–structure interaction (FSI) one-way coupling framework is adopted to investigate the influence of changing oil grades and slug characteristics on the maximum induced stresses in horizontal carbon steel pipe. It was found that increasing crude oil density causes frequent slugging and promotes the formation of liquid slugs further upstream near the inlet with high translational velocity and short wavelength. Therefore, the maximum induced stresses resulting from the interaction between slugs and the inner surface of pipes are strongly dependent on crude oil grade. In modelling extra heavy crude oil, a 40% increase in maximum induced stresses is recorded when the liquid superficial velocity decreases from 1 to 0.86 m/s at a constant natural gas superficial velocity.

Keywords

• computational fluid dynamics
• fluid–structure interaction (FSI)
• slug multiphase flow
• crude oil grade
• induced stresses