Tese: Optimization of the interfacial shear stress and assessment of closure relations for horizontal viscous-oil gas flows in the stratified and slug regimes
Aluno(a) : Marcelo de Alencastro PasqualetteOrientador(a): Angela Nieckele e Joao Neuenschwander
Área de Concentração: Termociências
Data: 11/08/2017
Link para tese/dissertação: http://doi.org/10.17771/PUCRio.acad.32458
Resumo: The current depletion of traditional oil fields is increasing the demand for the production and transport of unconventional oils, which might possess a high dynamic viscosity. In this context, the study of the simultaneous flow of gas and viscous oils in pipelines is of paramount importance for the Oil & Gas industry. One-dimensional numerical simulations play a key role in such studies, especially the ones based on the 1D Two-Fluid Model, whose numerical solution in fine meshes consists in the Regime Capturing Methodology. The purpose of this work is to use this approach for reproducing the experimental data of isothermal slug and stratified wavy viscous oil-gas flows in a horizontal laboratory-scale pipe. For improving the results of the methodology, experimental data were used together with an optimization procedure and a simplified version of the 1D Two-Fluid Model for successfully creating two new expressions for the interfacial friction factor, which showed better efficiency than standard literature correlations. The effect of introducing a dynamic pressure, axial momentum diffusion and dynamic interfacial shear in the 1D Two-Fluid Model was examined. Results of pressure gradient and liquid holdup (Probability Density Functions, mean values and transient profiles) were compared against experimental data. It was seen, with the aid of well-posedness analyses, that the dynamic pressure and the new expressions for the interfacial shear stress provided satisfactory results.