Abstract
Here, a unified 3D numerical model of gas-liquid two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe was established using the interface capture method based on the open source software package OpenFOAM. Through numerical simulation of the natural slugging and development process of slug flow under different working conditions, the motion, phase interface structure, pressure and velocity field distributions of the liquid slug were fully developed and analyzed. The simulation results are consistent with the experiment. The results showed that during the movement of the slug head, there is a throwing phenomenon and a wave-like motion of the liquid slug. In addition, the slug tail and body area have very similar velocity profiles, and the overall velocity field distribution becomes more uniform with the development of liquid slug. Moreover, there are sudden pressure fluctuations at the head and tail of the liquid slug.
Highlights
The mixed transmission pipelines on the seabed laid along the seabed terrain are mainly horizontal and near horizontal
Lu (2015) used six commercial finite volume codes to simulate the slug flow in horizontal pipe sections by 1D two-fluid model, and compared the results with experimental data, finding that the Simulation Study on Slug Flow simulated slug flow characteristics were quite different from the experimental ones
The results indicated that the volume fraction had a maximum near the upper pipe wall, and the profiles tended to flatten with increasing liquid flow rate
Summary
The mixed transmission pipelines on the seabed laid along the seabed terrain are mainly horizontal and near horizontal. These models cannot satisfactorily simulate the natural evolution process of the slug from starting to full development, and the local structures, transient flow characteristics, velocities and pressure distributions of the slug obtained by such model show large discrepancies with experimental data To address these issues, the present study uses an interface capture method, implemented using the open source software package OpenFOAM (2019), to establish a unified 3D numerical model of two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe. It can be seen that the simulated slug frequency closer to the inlet slightly overpredicts the experimental result This is because the model assumes that the gas is incompressible, and that the change in inlet pressure, which is an important contributor to slug formation but has little effect on fully developed liquid slugs, will be directly transmitted to the downstream pipeline. The model results are quantitatively consistent with the experiments, and seem to reflect the natural development process of liquid slug formation, merger, and disappearance, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the model for slug flow simulation
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