Background of study

Multiphase flow is the simultaneous flow of materials with different states and phases (gas,
oil and gas) or materials with different chemical properties but in the same state or phase
(liquid-liquid). The two materials are separated by a distinct interface.

The most common flows are the gas/solid flow, liquid/liquid flow, liquid/solid flow and gas
liquid flow. At least one of the phase must be a fluid either liquid or gas. The other phase
could be a fluid or solid particles suspended in the flow.

Virtually every processing system must deal with multiphase flow:

a. The flow of oil and gas in pipelines: The oil and gas industry is involved with
transportation of large volumes of oil and gas through long, horizontal, vertical and
inclined pipelines in onshore in offshore locations. This is characterized as multiphase
flow because it involves flow of different phases of fluid.
b. The flow of steam and water in nuclear reactors and in steam-heating pipes.
c. The flow of liquid and vapour refrigerants in the condensers and evaporation of
refrigerants and conditioning equipment.
d. Reboilers
e. Heat Exchangers.

Multiphase flow can be classified into disperse flow and separated flow. In disperse flow;
there is one phase of fluid as bubbles or drops in continuous phase of the second fluid. In
separated flow; consist of separate parallel streams of the two or more phases.

Multiphase flow causes the occurrence of different flow regime in the flow system. Flow
regime is referred to as the arrangement of fluids. Different flow regimes can occur for
vertical horizontal and inclined pipelines.

The main flow regimes are in horizontal pipelines are stratified (open and non-open channel
flow), dispersed bubble flow, plug flow, annular flow, wavy flow etc. vertical flow include
bubble flow, churn flow, annular flow, slug flow, wispy annular flow etc.

Bubble flow: The liquid phase is continuous and there is a distribution of small bubbles
within the liquid.

Slug or plug flow: The bubbles have fused together to form larger bubbles which approach
the diameter of the tubes and block the pipe conduit.

Churn flow: The flow region occurs when the slug/plug flow has disintegrated to form
fluctuating agitated regime.

Annular flow: This flow occurs when there is presence of a liquid film flowing on the pipe
wall because the pipe is round internally, this film is annulus-shaped and has gas flowing in
the gas core.
Wispy annular flow: It occurs when the flow rate of the liquid phase is increased, the
condensed liquid droplet in the core increases and this causes the formation of large lumps of
liquid.

In vertical flow, a transition from bubble to slug flow can occur. It occurs when bubbles
coalesce in the bubble flow region thereby leading to progressive increase in the bubble size
and the formation of the Taylor – type bubble which fill up the whole pipe diameter. The
change from bubble flow to slug flow occurs when the void fraction is about 25-30%. Void
waves are formed in the flow and in these waves; the bubbles become closely packed and are
more likely to mingle, causing a slug flow. A very viscous and unstable liquid film is present,
and fluctuation of the liquid to and fro is very often.

Transition also occurs from stratified to slug in horizontal flow.

The main focus of this paper is the vertical co-current flow of gas/liquid in the pipeline riser
in the oil and gas industry and the flow regime is termed slug flow.

During the transportation of the fluid, pressure drop, temperature drop, reduction in flow rate
etc may occur in the pipeline.

The reduction in the flowrate of gas and liquid and the inclination of the pipeline can cause a
phenomenon known as slugging. Severe slugging occurs when the build-up of liquid slug is
equal to or greater than one riser height. Also, in the riser the fluctuation of cyclic flow with
accumulation of slugs smaller than a riser length are also possible, but they are generally of a
lower severe nature due to the fact that it does not completely block the flow of gas.

Slugging can be classified as turn up slug, pigging slug, hydrodynamic slug and terrain slug.

Turn up slugging: it is caused by an increase in rate through the system which sweeps
accumulated fluid through a separator or slug catcher.

Pigging slug: It is caused by liquid swept in the pipeline ahead of the pig.

Hydrodynamic slugging: It is occurs where waves touch the top of the tube and form a liquid
slug which passes rapidly along the channel. It is caused by shear between the gas liquid
interface and the different movement of gas and liquid. It is the liquid build up in the
horizontal part of the pipe where the liquid and gas have different velocities. The slugs are
relatively short with higher frequencies. It can be easily managed by the surface separators
considering the small volume liquid compared to the large liquid capacity of the surface
separator.

Terrain slug: It can occur during pipeline transportation due to the low points in the pipeline
topography this causes the liquid to build up and block the gas until there is enough pressure
in the compressed gas to overcome the liquid hydrostatic head, riser slug or severe slug could
occur at the riser due to the flow of the fluid against gravity (pedersen, durdevic, & yang,
2015). Terrain slugging is observed at low liquid flowrate with a low pipeline pressure. It
involves a lot of liquid and it is very difficult to be managed by surface separators and slug
catchers. It causes level and pressure variations in the separators.

Severe slugging can be classified under terrain slugging. The formation of a slug is a cyclic
operation that involves four basic steps which are as follows (Heidi & Skogestad, 2005):

1. Low spots fill with liquid and flow is blocked.

2. Pressure builds up behind the blockage.
3. When pressure becomes high enough, gas blows liquid out of the low spot as slug.
4. After the blow-out, a new liquid slug will start to form in the low point.

Figure 1: Illustration of the cyclic behaviour (slug flow) in pipeline-riser systems (Heidi &
Skogestad, 2005)

The degree of slugging is determined by three major factors: pipeline topography, pipeline
pressure and production rate.

In offshore locations where oil and gas are produced in the subsea and are being transported
to the surface a pipeline is necessary for this. The pipeline is horizontal at the sea bed but as it
approaches the surface, an elbow joint is required to transport the oil and gas to the pipeline –
riser. The elbow joint has low point. Liquid tend to accumulate in this low point due to low
velocity or flowrate and this can lead to liquid build-up that cannot be lifted. If the gas
velocity is also low, it builds at the back of the liquid hold-up until the gas pressure is high
enough to push the liquid column into the pipeline riser. It occurs at low pipeline pressure.
The slug formed in this process is a severe slugging and the condition occurs at the end of a
well’s life when the production and pressure of the well has declined.

Severe slugging causes serious operational problems and equipment damage. Some of the
problems that are caused by slugs on the production platform are:
1. Serious interference in the separator system. It causes poor separation of the oil, gas
and water stream due to level and pressure variation in separator. It causes production
of oil with high water cut from the separator and also water from the separator water
outlet is not of good quality i.e. it contains oil films and this causes problems during
the process of water treatment since water cannot be used with high oil content.
Production of oil and water from separator becomes more difficult and time
consuming. Fluctuation of separator level also causes fluid flooding.
2. Sizable and sudden variation in the compressor operation and output because of the
irregular pressure transition.
3. The ability of wells to naturally lift hydrocarbons to the surface is reduced due to
pressure fluctuations.
4. The fluctuation of pressure increases flaring which is very environmentally
unfriendly.
5. Corrosion: Slug flow causes large fluctuations on the pipeline walls shear stress and
this causes a removal of the corrosion inhibitors from the internal surface of the
pipeline, thereby encouraging the corrosion- erosive attacks. (Carneiro et al., 2011)

Slugs can be supressed by various methods such as installation of top side choke and gas
lifting technique. The tops side choke has been found to effectively reduce slug severity.
Choking however causes an increase in pressure of the system and this reduces the
production rate of the well. It is not feasible because in oil and gas production, optimum
production is required. Gas lifting in also used to supress sever slugging as it reduces the
density of the fluid in the pipe and it increases approaching thee annular flow. Gas lift is
very effective but it is very costly. (JANSEN, SHOHAM, & TAITEL, 1996)

Installation of slug catcher and increment in the size of the first stage separator to provide
necessary buffer capacity can also be done to supress severe slugging. They are not
appropriate because of high cost and space limitation.

The parameters needed to characterize slug flow are gas and liquid phase’s distribution,
the liquid velocity and its irregularities, the bubble frequency (slug length) and the
turbulent characteristics of mass, momentary and energy transfer at the interface. (Sharma
et al., 1998)

Predicting the complex behaviour of slug is critical for continuous handling of fluid.
Development of a model that describes the comprehensive behaviour of the flow and
circumstance they occur. There are three ways to develop a model:

1. Experimental analysis through small scaled models installed with the necessary
instrumentation.
2. Theoretical analysis applying mathematical equations and model to develop a model
to describe the flow behaviour (conservation of mass, momentary and energy).
3. Computational analysis, through the use of modern computers and soft wares to
describe the behaviour of the flow, like OLGA, HLM, HYD-PREDIC, Ledaflow
software, KBC etc.
The predictive capability and physical understanding and physical understanding must rely
heavily on theoretical and computational models and the complexity of severe slug flow
presents major hindrance. (Christopher, 2005)

It is important to simulate appropriate characteristics of severe slugging precisely to evaluate

the danger of severe slugging and managing and proper handling of the slug.

Several works and research have been done on modelling of severe slugging by

But most of the mathematical model developed in the research works are either too complex;
series of high order partial differential equation and ordinary differential impossible to solve
or too simple to provide the valid result i.e. the model aren’t very accurate compared with
data from experimental analysis and simulated data (using OLGA). Therefore, research work
would still have to progress on the modelling of the severe slugging to obtain valid result
with acceptable level accuracy.

This paper focuses on the development of a theoretical and computational analysis of the
severe slugging in the pipeline riser. A simple low parameter mathematical model is
developed for a two-phase model to better understand the behaviour of the slug and the slug
properties such as slug frequency, liquid velocities, liquid and gas hold up, pressure variations
and the data from the model are compared to numerical simulation of slug flow of air and
water through a pipeline riser employing the two fluid model developed from OLGA.
REFERENCES

Carneiro, J. N. E., Fonseca Jr, R., Ortega, A. J., Chucuya, R. C., Nieckele, A. O., & Azevedo,

L. F. A. (2011). Statistical Characterization of TwoPhase Slug Flow in a Horizontal

Pipe, Vol. XXXIII(special), 251–158.

Christopher, E. B. (2005). Fundamentals of Multiphase Flows. Pasadena, California:

Cambridge University Press.

Heidi, S., & Skogestad, S. (2005). Anti-slug control experiments on a small-scale two-phase

loop. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU),.

pedersen, simon, durdevic, petar, & yang, zhenyu. (2015). review of slug detection,

modelling and control techniques for offshore oil and gas production processes, 8, 89–

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Sharma, S., Lewis, S., Kojasoy, G., 1998, “Local Studies in Horizontal GasLiquid Slug
Flow”U7, Nuclear Engineering and Design, Vol. 184, pp. 305-318.