Pressure-Minimization Method for Prediction of Two-Phase-Flow Splitting

was developed to predict the splitting phenomena under these regimes. Shoham extended his flow-splitting work to a horizontal reduced tee with a smaller-diameter branch arm (Shoham et al. 1989). Hong (1978) studied two-phase-flow splitting for a branching tee, considering the effect of side-arm angle and flow regimes on gas and liquid splitting. Hong and Griston (1995) studied flow splitting of an air/water system and concluded that, as the air split ratio increased to greater than 2:1, the experimental data points deviated from a 50:50 split. Hong and Griston (1995) also studied the effects of some devices on flow splitting. They recommended that nozzles be inserted directly downstream of an impacting tee to increase the chance of equal splitting. Azzopardi et al. (1987) considered the effects of annular flow for splitting at the tee junction. Azzopardi et al. (1988) investigated the effect of churn flow in the tee junctions. The experimental results for churn flow were the same as those for annular flow; therefore, they concluded that the inletgasand liquid-flow rates do not affect flow splitting. Peake (1992) concluded theoretically that uneven two-phase-flow splitting occurs as a result of unequal vapor-flow splitting. Tshuva et al. (1999) studied two-phase-flow splitting in horizontal and inclined parallel pipes. Taitel et al. (2003) studied the splitting of gas and liquid for four parallel pipes with a common inlet and outlet manifold capable of inclining from 0 to 15°. For the horizontal case, they observed identical splitting for each looped pipe, while for the other inclination angles, they observed a stagnant flow in at least one pipe. Pustylnik et al. (2006) investigated flow splitting in the lines on the basis of stability analysis, and proposed a model that was able to predict the number of pipes filled with stagnant liquid. One of the more-recent investigations on flow splitting was conducted by Alvarez et al. (2010). Their study investigated two-phase-flow splitting for looped lines such as parallel and looped configurations, and they developed a mechanistic model capable of predicting split ratio and pressure drop across each looped line on the basis of equal gas/liquid ratio in each branch. The purpose of our study is to discover the manner in which two phases of gas and liquid are split on the basis of the minimum pressure drop.