Improved Drift Flux Void Fraction Model for Horizontal Gas-liquid Intermittent Flow

Abstract

Drift Flux model is widely used in literature to predict void fraction in two-phase gas-liquid flow. Drift flux model has been used for all flow regimes. The distribution parameter implemented in the model is very crucial for the accuracy of the model. A new distribution parameter was developed in this paper as a function of two dimensionless parameters and flow regime (slug or plug). The new model showed a superior predicted void fraction accuracy over all available models in literature. In this paper, the influence of the flow regimes was implemented in the formulation of the drift flux model distribution parameter for the first time in literature. The drift velocity was found to be negligible in the horizontal configuration. The proposed model was validated using unbiased data from literature from different sources and for a wide range of liquid viscosity from water up to high viscosity oil (600 cP) and pipe diameter from 19 mm up to 152 mm. The mean relative absolute error of the proposed model using all data bank is around 16% while the least error model available in literature is around 19%. Moreover, the most recent models of Rassame and Hibiki (2018) and Kong et al. (2018b) give 33% and 50%, respectively.

Keywords

• gas-liquid two-phase flow
• void fraction
• drift flux
• plug and slug flow
• horizontal configuration