Abstract
This paper presents an experimental and numerical study of gas-liquid annular flow in horizontal 180 U-bends. The paper aims to study the effect of bend curvature radius and superficial gas velocity in the liquid film's behavior and annular flow characteristics. The study is divided into three sections. The first section corresponds to the experimental methodology and results. The second section compresses the validation of the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model with the experimental results. Finally, the last section presents the CFD estimation of additional variables that cannot be acquired with the existing experimental setup. The experimental results provide an initial understanding of the multiphase mixture obtained using optical techniques (i.e., High-Speed Filming (HSF) analysis). The comparison between the experiments and the numerical simulations is presented, and a reasonable agreement is observed between both approaches. Finally, additional results such as film distribution and rotation before and after the bend are extracted from the CFD simulations.
Highlights
Two-phase gas-liquid flows in pipelines are commonly present in several industries as Oil and Gas, nuclear, and chemical
Return bends or U-bends are found in several applications, and their unique configuration affects the behavior of the multiphase mixture
An impressive result extracted from the experimental results is the effect of the bend in the liquid holdup
Summary
Two-phase gas-liquid flows in pipelines are commonly present in several industries as Oil and Gas, nuclear, and chemical. Return bends or U-bends are found in several applications, and their unique configuration affects the behavior of the multiphase mixture. Gravitational, interfacial, and centrifugal forces affect the gas-liquid mixture's behavior as it passes through the bend. The bend's effect on the flow depends on the flow pattern, phase velocities, flow direction (i.e., upward, downward, horizontal), and the bend configuration (i.e., vertical, horizontal, inclined, and curvature radius). Forcing annular flow through a 180 bend may lead to operational issues such as secondary flow, flow separation, pressure pulsation, and pipe drying. These can lead to pipeline integrity problems such as burnout, corrosion, or tube failure
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