Development of A New Correlation for Estimating Pressure Gradient of Oil- Water Two Phase Flow in A Horizontal Pipe

Abstract

Pressure gradient of a two phase mixture in a horizontal pipe were experimentally investigated for water/super viscose oil mixtures. The mixture contained oil having a viscosity of 67 cp and density of 0.872 g/cm3, and pure water, flowing through an acrylic pipe having a length and diameter of 6 m and 20 mm, respectively. A high speed digital camera has been used to record visual information. Superficial velocities of water and oil were in the range between 0.18–1.2 m/s and 0.18–0.95 m/s, respectively. The experimental pressure gradient has been compared to the Al-Wahaibi correlation and two-fluid model. The absolute average error for the “two-fluid model” and Al-Wahaibi correlation have been calculated for 30% and 12%, respectively. In this investigation, a new modified correlation is developed on the basis of the Al-Wahaibi correlation, that predicts the values of pressure gradient with an absolute average error of about 9%. The pressure gradient correlation was validated extensively against 11 independent data sources. To our knowledge, this is the best pressure gradient furmola that is published for oil–water flow which includes wide range of operational conditions including fluid properties, pipe diameters and pipe materials. One of the advantages of the new proposed formula is that it also performs well for super viscosity oils.

Keywords

• flow pattern map
• oil viscosity
• oil–water flow
• pressure gradient