Splitting characteristics and flow distribution of gas-liquid flow in two parallel pipes

Yehuda Taitel*, Bella Gurevich, Dvora Barnea

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The behavior of adiabatic two-phase flow in parallel pipes is quite complex and difficult to predict. The manner in which the phases are distributed among the pipes depends on the inlet flow rates, physical properties of the phases, the geometry of the common manifold, and pipes inclination. Pustylnik (2007) studied experimentally the distribution of an adiabatic air-water mixture in four horizontal and slightly inclined parallel pipes with common inlet and outlet manifolds. A mechanistic model was suggested to predict the distribution of the phases. The model is based on the assumption of ideal splitting, namely, the ratio of gas to liquid flow rates in each of the parallel pipes is equal to that in the inlet manifold. This study tests the validity of this assumption and experimentally determines the actual splitting characteristics at the inlet manifold for a system of two pipes. The experimental results show that the splitting rule differs slightly from the ideal splitting assumption and that it is not sensitive to the inlet flow rates within the measured range. The splitting rule obtained is used in the predictive model for the two-phase flow distribution in the pipes. The calculated transition boundaries are compared to the experimental transition boundaries and to those obtained by the ideal splitting assumption.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)247-266
Number of pages20
JournalMultiphase Science and Technology
Volume22
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Parallel pipes
  • Splitting
  • Two-phase flow

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