The impact of 180° return bend inclination on pressure drop characteristics and phase distribution during oil-water flow

Abstract

The present work aims to capture the influence of the inclination of the return bend on flow patterns and pressure drop during oil-water flow. The experiments were carried out for different inclinations (0°, 15°, 30°, and 45°) of return bend for various superficial velocity combinations of oil (kerosene) and water ranging from 0.07 to 0.66 m/s. The experiments showed that pressure drop increases with the increase in inclination. However, the pressure drop at a fixed inclination (say 15°) decreases with the increase in the superficial velocity of the water. Distinct flow patterns observed in the return bend were droplet flow, film inversion, slug flow, plug flow and large slug flow. Droplet flow dominates at the lower range of kerosene (i.e., Usk = 0.07–0.2 m/s) and higher range of water superficial velocity (i.e., Usw = 0.40–0.66 m/s) at all the inclinations considered in this study. Additionally, comparisons between the experimental and numerical simulation results were made. The numerical solution utilized the Euler-Euler approach, considering the different phases as interpenetrating continua. The Volume of Fluid (VOF) model was used within this approach, monitoring the volume fraction of each phase over the domain while calculating one set of momentum equations for each phase. To capture the turbulent effects accurately, the k-ε turbulence model was incorporated. It happened to be found that the numerical findings showed remarkable agreement with the experimental data.

Keywords

• Liquid-liquid two-phase flow
• Pressure drop
• Superficial velocity
• Gravitational effect
• Phase distribution