Slug flow behavior in a hilly terrain pipeline

Abstract

When slugs flow in a hilly terrain pipeline that contains sections of different inclination they undergo a change of length as the slugs move from section to section. In addition, slugs can be generated at low elbows, dissipate at top elbows and shrink or grow in length as they travel along the pipe. In this work a slug-tracking model is proposed that follows the behavior of all individual slugs and is capable of simulating the aforementioned processes. Two cases are considered: the case of steady slug flow, for which each slug maintains its identity as it flows from one section to another; and the more complex case, where new slugs are generated and disappear, and the slug identity along the hilly terrain is not maintained. Comparisons with experimental data demonstrate the capability of this slug-tracking method and show that the proposed model is able to simulate correctly slug behavior in a hilly terrain pipeline.