Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Stratified Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow in Horizontal Circular Pipes

Abstract

This paper reports numerical and experimental investigation of stratified gas-liquid two-phase flow in horizontal circular pipes. The Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes equations (RANS) with the κ-ω model for a fully developed stratified gas-liquid two-phase flow are solved by using the finite element method. A smooth and horizontal interface surface is assumed without considering the interfacial waves. The continuity of the shear stress across the interface is enforced with the continuity of the velocity being automatically satisfied by the variational formulation. For each given interface position and longitudinal pressure gradient, an inner iteration loop runs to solve the nonlinear equations. The Newton-Raphson scheme is used to solve the transcendental equations by an outer iteration to determine the interface position and pressure gradient for a given pair of volumetric flow rates. The interface position in a 51.2 mm ID circular pipe was measured experimentally by the ultrasonic pulse-echo technique. The numerical results were also compared with experimental results in a 21 mm ID circular pipe reported by Masala [1]. The good agreement between the numerical and experimental results indicates that the κ-ω model can be applied for the numerical simulation of stratified gas-liquid two-phase flow.