Experimental characterization of the dispersed bubbles in the slug of an air–water slug flow in a vertical pipe

Slug flow is one among the different flow patterns that two-phase flows can assume. This pattern is composed of a Taylor bubble and a liquid slug and can commonly occur in pipes in the oil and gas industry. Given the transient and intermittent behavior of this kind of flow, it becomes necessary to d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering 2023-09, Vol.45 (9), Article 492
Main Authors: Maldonado, Paul A. D., Gmyterco, Alexandre, Rodrigues, Carolina C., Mancilla, Ernesto, dos Santos, Eduardo N., da Silva, Marco J., da Fonseca Junior, Roberto, Morales, Rigoberto E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aspect ratio
Bubbles
Dimensionless numbers
Dispersion
Engineering
Flow distribution
Fluid flow
High speed cameras
Liquid flow
Mechanical Engineering
Nose
Pipes
Reynolds number
Slug flow
Taylor bubbles
Technical Paper
Two phase flow
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Summary:Slug flow is one among the different flow patterns that two-phase flows can assume. This pattern is composed of a Taylor bubble and a liquid slug and can commonly occur in pipes in the oil and gas industry. Given the transient and intermittent behavior of this kind of flow, it becomes necessary to describe its characteristics. In this study, an experimental characterization of the dispersed small bubbles in the slug flow in a 0.026-m ID, 14-m-long vertical pipe was developed. Experiments for air and water were carried out, with both the gas and the liquid superficial velocities ranging from 0.2 to 1.5 m/s. The monitoring of the slug flow structures was accomplished by using a wire-mesh capacitive sensor. A high-speed camera was used to observe the nose shape of the Taylor bubbles and the dispersed small bubbles in the liquid slug. A phenomenological analysis of the flow was developed as a function of the dimensionless Froude and Reynolds numbers. The mean diameter and aspect ratio of the dispersed bubbles were calculated as a function of the liquid flow inertia, and a decrease in their sizes and deformation with the increase in the Reynolds number was observed. These small bubbles modify the nose shapes of the Taylor bubbles leading to flattened forms. Additionally, the transition from homogeneous to wall-peak bubble distributions was observed to be a function of the increase in the population of dispersed small bubbles.
ISSN:1678-5878
1806-3691
DOI:10.1007/s40430-023-04360-1