Pressure Drop Analysis for Liquid-Liquid Downflow Through Vertical Pipe

Abstract

In the present paper, the pressure drop characteristics and flow patterns during downward vertical flow of lube oil-water as well as kerosene-water through a circular glass conduit have been studied. Core-annular flow has been observed to be the dominant flow pattern and it gives rise to slug flow with increase of water and/or decrease of oil velocity. However, there are subtle differences in the flow distribution observed for high viscosity and low viscosity oils. The two-phase frictional pressure drop for separated flow patterns of both the liquid pairs is predicted using two-fluid model. Since the model predictions have a large mismatch with experimental data, an empirical correlation is also proposed for improved predictions. The homogeneous and drift flux models are used for slug and dispersed flow patterns.