Pressure Drop in Circular Two-Phase Pipe Flow As Influenced by the Angle of Inclination

Abstract

A variety of models exist to describe the frictional pressure drop for two-phase flow in a pipe. These models all are based on assumptions and simplifications of the flow regime and can experience difficulty when modeling flow through non-horizontal pipes due to the buoyant effects as the bubbles grow in size. Using computational fluid dynamics, it is possible to model the interaction between the two phases and determine an expected pressure drop. In order to evaluate the effect of the inclination angle of a channel, a parametric study will be conducted using ANSYS Fluent; these predicted pressure drops will then be compared to those found in literature for validation and then to other theoretical pressure drop calculations. Through this study, the benefits of both the theoretical framework and the numerical simulation will be identified.