Experimental Investigation of the Vertical Upward Single- and Two-Phase Flow Pressure Drops Through Gate and Ball Valves

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an experimental investigation of the pressure drop (DP) through valves in vertical upward flows. Experiments were carried out using a 1¼″ (DN 32) ball and gate valve. Five opening areas have been investigated from fully open to the nearly fully closed valve, using air with a superficial velocity of 0–3.5 m/s and water 0.05–0.91 m/s. These ranges cover single-phase and the bubbly, slug and churn two-phase flow regimes. It was found that for the single-phase flow experiments, the valve coefficient increases with the valve opening and is the same, in both valves, for the openings smaller than 40%. The single-phase pressure drop increases with the liquid flowrate and decreases with the opening area. The two-phase flow pressure drop was found considerably increased by reducing the opening area for both valves. It reaches its maximum values at 20% opening for the ball valve and 19% opening for the gate valve. It was also inferred that at fully opening condition, the two-phase flow multiplier, for both valves, has been found close to unity for most of the tested flow conditions. For 40 and 20% valve openings the two-phase multiplier decreases in the power-law with liquid holdup for the studied flow conditions. Models proposed originally for evaluating the pressure drop through an orifice in single-phase and two-phase flows were also applied and assessed in the present experimental data.