An Experimental Study on the Flow Patterns of Oil-water Two-phase Flow in an Upwardly Inclined Pipe

doi:10.11885/j.issn.1674-5086.2018.05.30.01

Abstract

Abstract: During the commissioning and operation of a large number of refined oil pipelines in China, it was found that water accumulation at low points in upwardly inclined pipelines caused by the adoption of water circulation for commissioning resulted in serious corrosion problems within these pipelines. Inflows of oil from the upstream sections can be used to carry away the water from the low points and effectively alleviate internal corrosion. In the present study, 0# diesel fuel and deionized water were used to observe oil-water two-phase flow patterns in an upwardly inclined pipeline with an internal diameter of 100 mm and the measurement of the critical water-carrying velocity of oil. The results show that as the oil viscosity and upward inclination angle of the pipeline increases, three types of flow patterns are sequentially induced in the oil-water two-phase flow, namely, stratified wavy flow, stratified wavy flow with water droplets, and oil-dominated dispersed flow. Within the same flow pattern, the minimum critical velocity for the oil phase to carry the water phase into the upwardly inclined section increases with an increase in inclination angle. When the inclination angle increases from 20° to 25°, the flow pattern transitions from stratified wavy flow to stratified wavy flow with liquid droplets, and the minimum critical velocity for the oil phase to carry the water phase into the upwardly inclined section decreases from 0.203 m/s to 0.187 m/s. When the upward inclination angle increases from 30° to 35°, the initial flow pattern transitions from stratified wavy flow with liquid droplets to water-in-oil dispersed flow, and the minimum critical velocity for the oil phase to carry the water phase into the upwardly inclined section decreases from 0.205 m/s to 0.194 m/s. An increase in the inclination angle causes a slight increase in the minimum critical velocity for the oil phase to fully carry the water phase away from the upwardly inclined section, while causing a reduction in the velocity at which flow pattern transitions occur.

Key words: oil-water two-phase flow, upwardly inclined pipeline, flow pattern, critical velocity

CLC Number:

ZHU Shanshan, MOU Xingjie, LI Wang, SONG Xiaoqin, GU Li. An Experimental Study on the Flow Patterns of Oil-water Two-phase Flow in an Upwardly Inclined Pipe[J]. 西南石油大学学报(自然科学版), 2019, 41(4): 144-151.

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