Frictional pressure drop of gas liquid two-phase flow in pipes

Abstract

Experiments of air water two-phase flow frictional pressure drop of vertical and horizontal smooth and relatively rough pipes were conducted, respectively. The result demonstrated that the frictional pressure drop increases with increasing relative roughness of the pipe. However, the influence of the relative roughness becomes more evident at higher vapour quality and higher mass flux. A new prediction model for frictional pressure drop of two-phase flow in pipes is proposed. The model includes a new definition of the Reynolds number and the friction factor of two-phase flow. The proposed model fits the presented experimental data very well, for vertical, horizontal, smooth and rough pipes. Therefore, the reproductive accuracy of the model is tested on the experimental data existing in the open literature and compared with the most common models. The statistical comparison, based on the Friedel’s Data-Bank containing of about 16,000 measured data, demonstrated that the proposed model is the best overall agreement with the data. The model was tested for a wide range of flow types, fluid systems, physical properties and geometrical parameters, typically encountered in industrial piping systems. Hence, calculating based on the new approach is sufficiently accurate for engineering purposes.