Numerical study on flow characteristics of hydrate slurry liquid-solid two-phase flow considering the adhesion between particles

Abstract

The aggregation effect caused by the adhesion between the hydrate particles in pipe significantly affects the flow characteristics of the fluid, which is closely related to the safe transport of slurry in the pipeline. In this work, a two-fluid model considering the inter-particle adhesion is proposed to investigate the hydrate slurry flow; this model extends the kinetic theory of granular flow, and the inter-particle adhesion is specially considered in the solid phase hydrodynamic properties. Moreover, the population balance model is coupled into the basic two-fluid model to describe the variation of particle number and size. It is found that the maximum deviation between the simulated and experimental values is reduced by 25% compared to the traditional model when the proposed model is adopted to simulate hydrate slurry flow. Simulation work is also carried out to quantify the differences in flow characteristics within the pipeline by two-fluid model with or without considering the inter-particle adhesion. The results indicate that the recognizable increase in the mean size of hydrate can be observed under the condition of the particle adhesion effect is taken into account. Additionally, the effects of various inlet boundary conditions on hydrate slurry flow are explored in detail with the help of the improved two-fluid model. The special two-fluid model developed in this work may pave the way for investigating the flow characteristics of liquid-solid fluids with adhesion characteristics.