PRE SSURE GRADIENT CORRELATION FOR OIL–WATER DISPERSED FLOW IN HORIZONTAL ACRYLIC PIPES

A series of oil-water pressure gradient experiments was collected in order to present a new pressure gradient correlation for oil-water dispersed flow in horizontal acrylic pipes. Zigrang and Sylvester friction factor equation was modified for taking into account the wetting property of the acrylic pipes and work for two phase oil–water flow. The new model was derived from 160 experimental pressure gradient data points for variety range of Reynolds number (Rem =2070-98000)and mixture velocities (Um=0.95-4 m/s). The accuracy of the new model has been evaluated against the homogeneous model and the comparison revealed that the new proposed model predicts the pressure gradient with higher accuracy than the homogeneous model.

Keywords:

Pressure gradient correlation , Oil-water flow , Dispersed flow , Acrylic pipes , Wetting property , Homogeneous model