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Physics of aeration in slug: flow visualization analysis in horizontal pipes

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Abstract

Aeration in slug and associated secondary flow leads to surging of pressure and erosion corrosion in pipe. Surging of pressure develops high mechanical impact on the pipe, and erosion corrosion reduces the thickness of internal wall, thereby resulting in pipe failure. To explore the phenomena of aeration in slug, flow visualization analysis is reported in this paper for intermittent flow sub-regimes and their transition. Analysis is reported for onset of slug, transition of plug to slug flow and development of aeration at the slug front. The visualized images and the motion pictures captured using high-speed photography in the present experiments are used to depict the process of air entrapment during the transition of wavy-stratified flow to slug flow as well as plug flow to slug flow. It is depicted for the first time through our visualization analysis that gas bubble entrapment in slug happens due to plunging kind of wave breaking mechanism. The captured images are also analyzed to describe the phenomena of augmentation of aeration in slug leading to the formation of highly aerated slug flow. Thorough understanding of aeration in slug will help in avoiding the chances of pipe failure.

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Notes

  1. Literature on wave breaking in horizontal pipe flow is scarce. Recently, Vollestad et al. (2019a, 2019b) reported microscale wave breaking in pipe flow.

  2. In the current research paper, the experiments are carried out on 25 ± 0.15 mm I.D. pipe.

  3. In the present work, near the boundary region, at \({\mathrm{Re}}_{\mathrm{SG}} =2650\), highly aerated slug flow is observed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India (Sanction Letter No. SB/S3/MIMER/0111/2013 dated 23-05-2014), for the development of two-phase flow test rig used for the present research.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, S. V. National Institute of Technology, Surat, Gujrat, 395 007, India

    Sunny Saini & Jyotirmay Banerjee

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  1. Sunny Saini
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Correspondence to Jyotirmay Banerjee.

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Saini, S., Banerjee, J. Physics of aeration in slug: flow visualization analysis in horizontal pipes. J Vis 24, 917–930 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-020-00737-9

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