Investigating The Behaviour Of Air-silicone Oil Flows In Vertical And Horizontal Pipes For Effective Gas-liquid Transport

The concurrent flow of gas/liquid in pipes poses a great challenge due to the difficulty associated with the flow of fluid. The flow is characterized by the existence of flow regimes which can be identified by the geometrical arrangement of the phases in a pipe, with Churn flow being the least understood flow pattern in vertical pipes because of the controversies associated with its existence, therefore making it difficult to be predicted. This work aims at investigating the behavior of air–silicone oil flows in vertical and horizontal pipes for effective gas–liquid transportation. To help predict the various flows that exist in these pipes, a drift-flux model was developed for the efficient calculation of void fraction.

This model is often used to characterize and predict flow regimes for lots of geometries. The model was developed to calculate void fraction for the accurate prediction of flow regimes that were observed in this work. The various flow patterns in existence were identified, and the model generated for each of them by employing Zuber and Findlay’s correlation. Afterwards, the parameters obtained from the drift-flux model, Co (distribution parameter) and Vd (drift velocity) were fitted as linear functions, and their values were obtained from the slope and the intercept respectively. The developed model had better results for the void fraction as compared to the existing correlations investigated.