Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Gas-Yield Power-Law Fluids in a Horizontal Pipe

Abstract

Abstract Two-phase flow of gas/yield power-law (YPL) fluids in pipes can be found in a wide range of practical and industrial applications. To improve the understanding of the effects of rheological parameters of non-Newtonian liquids in a two-phase model, experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) investigations of gas/yield power-law fluids in a horizontal pipe were carried out. Two Xanthan gum (XG) solutions at concentrations of (0.05% and 0.10% by weight) were used as the working liquids. The experiments were conducted in a flow loop in a 65-m open-cycle system. The horizontal test section had a diameter of 3 inches (76.2 mm). The transient calculations were conducted using a Volume of Fluid (VOF) model in ANSYS Fluent version 17.2. Slug flow characteristics were recorded and observed by a high-speed digital camera in different operating conditions. The slug velocity and slug frequency were investigated experimentally and numerically, and a comparison of results with empirical relationships found in the literature was performed. We observed that the rheological properties of non-Newtonian phase influence the flow behavior in two-phase flow with increasing XG concentrations. The results of the empirical correlation to measure the slug frequency of a gas/non-Newtonian with considered the rheology of the shear-thinning behaver gave acceptable agreement with numerical measurements at low polymer concentration. The effect of liquid superficial velocity on slug translational velocity at low gas superficial velocity was relatively high.