A STUDY OF TERRAIN-INDUCED SLUGGING IN 2-PHASE FLOW PIPELINES

The presence of gas and liquid flowing simultaneously in pipelines mad e of several uphill and downhill sections can lead to the formation of long liquid slugs which are blown from one pipeline section to the ne xt due to gas pressure. This terrain-induced slugging gives rise to un desirable unsteady flow conditions. In this paper, a transient two-flu id model is validated for conditions of terrain-induced slugging. This model contains new correlations, for the drag coefficient and the vir tual mass force for the slug flow regime, that were presented in previ ous papers. An experimental study of terrain-induced slugging in a lab oratory scale pipeline, made of two uphill and two downhill sections, is also reported. This provides data for the model validation. The mod el predicts all the major features of the data, and is in good quantit ative agreement as well.