Experimental investigations of kerosene-water two-phase flow in vertical pipe

Oil and water two-phase flow studies are important to the oil industries. This paper aims to determine the flow patterns, holdup, pressure losses, phase inversion, drift flux parameters and mixture properties in vertical upward kerosene and water flow. The experiment was conducted in a 26 mm i.d duct with phase velocities spanning from 0.1 to 1.0 m/s. The averaged holdup was measured using quick close valves in a 1.16 m long test section. The same test section was used to measure the pressure drop. A local impedance probe and high-speed films were used to determine the flow patterns. Six different flow patterns was identified: dispersed bubbly (DB), core annular (CA), bubbly (B), churn turbulent (CT), and elongated water drop (EWD). The kerosene holdup was highest for EWD, spanning from 0.8 to 0.9, followed by CT and CA, which spans from 0.35 to 0.75. The kerosene holdup for bubbly spans from 0.12 to 0.6, being the highest range for all patterns. The phase inversion occurs when the kerosene input fraction is βK = 0.35. There is no evidence of slippage between the dispersed and continuous phases. The drift velocity is due to the misalignment of the dispersed fraction and the mixture velocity profile and the distribution parameter is C0 = 1.10. The pressure loss showed a good agreement with Blasius correlation. The exception is for the bubbly and churn turbulent. The density was determined using the homogeneous model and five different mixture viscosity models were investigated. The pressure loss deviation using (Mukhaimer et al., 2015) mixture viscosity spans from 5 to 25%. The drift-flux correlation increase the predictive capability of the oil fractions in oil pipelines, which contribute to the operational security. In addition, a better pressure drop losses estimative provide in this study helps to a better oil pipeline design184The authors would like to thank Petrobras under the FUNCAMP 4721 grand, which made this research possibl