Abstract

Segregated and dispersed oil-water flow through horizontal pipes is persistent. However, the prediction of operational parameters such as water volume fractions could be a difficult task. Therefore, in this study, an optimization model based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is proposed in order to determine the droplet size distribution for modeling dispersed flows, which may help to accurately predict water volume fractions, especially when experimental data do not report the droplet size. The findings suggest that for the modeling of segregated flows, inlet droplet diameters near to 10 mm should be considered, while for fully dispersed flows, droplets diameters around 1 mm should be used. CFD validation shows a fair agreement with reported experimental data of water volume fraction, with errors below 14%.

摘要

通过水平管道的分离和分散的油水流持续存在。然而，预测操作参数（如水体积分数）可能是一项艰巨的任务。因此，在本研究中，提出了一种基于计算流体动力学 (CFD) 的优化模型，以确定用于模拟分散流的液滴尺寸分布，这可能有助于准确预测水体积分数，尤其是当实验数据未报告液滴大小。研究结果表明，对于分离流的建模，应考虑接近 10 毫米的入口液滴直径，而对于完全分散的流，应使用约 1 毫米的液滴直径。CFD 验证显示与报告的水体积分数实验数据相当一致，误差低于 14%。