Abstract
Interfacial waves in core-annular pipe flow are studied through two-phase numerical simulations. Here the water annulus is turbulent, whereas the oil core stays laminar. The low-Reynolds number Launder & Sharma k−ε model is applied. By extracting the moving wave shape from the two-phase results and imposing this as a solid boundary in a single-phase simulation for the water annulus gives single-phase results (for the pressure drop and holdup ratio) that are in close agreement with values obtained from the two-phase approach. The influence of wave amplitude and wave length on the pressure drop and hold up ratio is then studied by using the single-phase flow model. This gives insight in the appearance of core-annular flow, where the water-based Fanning wall-friction factor and the hold-up ratio are selected as the most important quantities. The effect of watercut and eccentricity on these quantities is also investigated.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 104152 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | International Journal of Multiphase Flow |
Volume | 154 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Keywords
- Core-annular flow
- friction factor
- hold-up ratio
- interfacial waves