Effect of high pressure on severe slugging and multiphase flow pattern transition in a long pipeline-riser system

Abstract

Severe slugging poses an enormous threat to the safe operation of high-pressure long petroleum pipelines. However, most published studies are conducted in short pipelines under atmospheric pressure. In this work, the gas–liquid two-phase flow experiment is conducted in the pipeline-riser system of 380 m long and 75 mm inner diameter under the separator pressure from atmospheric pressure to high pressure (10 MPa), and flow pattern maps are established. Under high-pressure conditions, liquid fallback and second blowout of severe slugging disappear. In the flow pattern maps, flow pattern types reduce, and severe slugging region shrinks. The boundary between stable flow and severe slugging appears on the left side of the flow pattern map and moves in the direction of higher superficial gas velocity. Increasing separator pressure leads to the increase in the severe slugging period. A correlation equation applicable to predicting the severe slugging period for different pressures (0, 1 and 5 MPa) is proposed, and the average error is less than ± 7.9%. Due to the inhibition of high pressure, the amplitude of the riser differential pressure decreases at most working points and increases only at a few working points where flow pattern transition occurs.