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Multi-phase Flow Analysis in Oil and Gas Engineering
Systems and its Modelling
a report by
O r l a n d o F A y a l a , 1 L u i s F A y a l a 2 and O r l a n d o M A y a l a 1
1. Universidad de Oriente; 2. Pennsylvania State University
Two-phase flow is very common in industrial processes and
its applications were already in use in ages as remote as the era
of Archimedes. At the present time, many industrial processes
rely on multi-phase phenomena for the transport of energy and
mass or for material processing. During the last century, the
nuclear, chemical and petroleum industries propelled intense
research activity on the area. Their efforts have been aimed at the
demystification of the mechanisms taking place during this complex
flow situation.
In the petroleum industry, two-phase flow can be found in a variety
of situations. The three more common working fluids (oil, natural
gas and water) can have four different two-phase flow
permutations: gas–liquid, liquid–liquid, solid–liquid and solid–gas
flows. A solid phase can be incorporated to the flow either from the
reservoir itself (due to either drilling activities or sand formation
during production) or from the formation of complex solid structures
due to the prevailing production conditions (e.g. hydrates in natural
gas flow or waxes and asphaltenes in oil flow). Oil and natural gas
transportation typically deals with a gas–liquid system of flow. Due
to the deformable nature of fluids, the simultaneous flow of gas
and liquid in a pipe represents a very complex process. As a
Orlando F Ayala is a Consultant for the Venezuelan Petroleum Company. His
research activities focus on the areas of natural gas, fluid mechanics,
turbomachinery and heat transfer. He is a member of the National Association of
Engineers of Venezuela. Professor Ayala holds an MSc degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of Kansas. He was Professor of Mechanical
Engineering at the Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela for 40 years before his
retirement and chaired the Natural Gas Engineering graduate programme of
Universidad de Oriente for 15 years.
Luis F Ayala is Assistant Professor of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering at
the Pennsylvania State University, US. He has also been an Instructor in the
Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Engineering Departments at Universidad de
Oriente. Professor Ayala’s research activities focus on the areas of natural gas
engineering, hydrocarbon phase behaviour, multi-phase flow, numerical
modelling, and artificial intelligence. He is a Member of the Society of Petroleum
Engineers), the American Chemical Society, the National Association of Engineers
of Venezuela and the Canadian Petroleum Society. Professor Luis Ayala holds PhD
and MSc degrees in petroleum and natural gas engineering from Pennsylvania
State University and two engineering degrees with honours, one in chemical
engineering (summa cum laude) and one in petroleum engineering (summa cum laude),
from Universidad de Oriente.
Orlando M Ayala is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the
Universidad de Oriente. Professor Ayala’s research activities focus on the areas
of multi-phase flows, turbulent flows, computational fluid analysis, direct
numerical simulation and heat transfer. He is a Member of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers and the National Association of Engineers of
Venezuela. Professor Orlando M Ayala holds PhD and MSc degrees in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of Delaware and an engineering degree in
Mechanical Engineering with honours (cum laude) from Universidad de Oriente. He
has also been working on several engineering projects for the Venezuelan
Petroleum Company.
© TOUCH BRIEFINGS 2007
Flow Analysis
consequence of their deformable nature, gas and liquid may
adopt a wide variety of spatial configurations, usually referred to as
flow patterns.
Multi-phase flow phenomena can be found in a wide range of
length scales of interest. Therefore, the most suitable approach to
study multi-phase flows will largely depend on the length scale of
interest. Typically, in the petroleum industry, attention is given to
large-scale phenomena in multi-phase flows, as no detailed flow
behaviour is needed for routine design and operation. For instance,
in pipeline networks we are interested only in the pressure drop and
liquid hold-up. Other than the effect of the local flow pattern
variables, detailed flow phenomena are not important. However,
small-scale studies of multi-phase flows are very important because
large-scale phenomena are controlled by small-scale physics. For
instance, the transition from one flow pattern to another is driven by
local small-scale phenomena. One of the most important problems
to be addressed by the scientific community is the development of
an improved understanding of transitions from one flow regime to
another. This can be achieved only through small-scale studies of
multi-phase flows. In addition, for the improved understanding of
the operation of process equipment such as separators in the
petroleum industry, it is necessary to understand the small-scale
phenomena associated with separation.
The Growth of Multi-phase Flow Modelling
The development of multi-phase flow large-scale analysis in the
petroleum industry has been divided into three partially overlapping
periods – the empirical period, the awakening years and the
modelling period1 – which together encompass the second half of
the past century. During the empirical period, all efforts were
focused on correlating data from laboratory and field facilities in an
attempt to encompass the widest range of operational conditions
possible. The earliest attempt to empirically predict two-phase flow
pressure drops for horizontal pipes is the well-known work of
Lockhart and Martinelli. This correlation was followed by an
innumerable number of new ones, which claimed to be progressively
more applicable for a wider range of operational conditions. Being
the first quantitative approach to two-phase flow modelling,
Lockhart and Martinelli’s correlation became a classic against which
subsequent correlations were compared. The fact is that most
correlations are always best applicable for the conditions from which
they were derived. It is worth mentioning the correlation developed
by Beggs and Brill for predicting flow behaviour in inclined pipes.
Along with a number of modifications applied to it, Beggs and Brill’s
correlation became one of the most extensively used correlations.
The correlation considers horizontal, vertical and inclined pipes, and
the basic correlating parameter was the Froude number – a
dimensional number that is considered a measure of the influence of
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Multi-phase Flow Analysis in Oil and Gas Engineering Systems and its Modelling
gravity on fluid motion. In general, the reliance on the empirical
approach was always limited by the uncertainty of their application
to systems operating under different conditions than those from
which the correlations were originally proposed. Nonetheless,
calculating and designing flow lines in multi-phase production
facilities on the basis of empirical correlations was the norm until
well into the 1980s.
The advent of the personal computer during the 1980s dramatically
enhanced the capabilities of handling progressively more complex
design situations, which is why this period has been called ‘the
awakening years’.1 Much of the petroleum research on multi-phase
flow during these years and the subsequent modelling period was
enriched by the progress already made by the nuclear industry.
Although the nuclear industry dealt with much simpler fluids (water
and steam), it led the way towards more involved two-phase flow
analysis in the petroleum industry. More fundamental multi-phase
flow analysis approaches, such as two-fluid modelling, were already
in use in the nuclear industry in the 1970s. These seed efforts are the
genesis of the well-known fast transient two-phase-flow codes –
State-of-the-art large-scale multi-phase flow
modelling in the oil and gas industry is largely
based on mechanistic models.
RELAP4, RELAP5, RETRAN, MEKIN, COBRA, CATHARE and TRAC – in
use today in the nuclear industry. Nowadays, the petroleum industry
might be ready to explore new research avenues in multi-phase flow
analysis, with the incorporation of the increasingly sophisticated
modelling tools that have become available in the last few years.
The modelling period, which extends up to the present day, refers
to the growing tendency of introducing more physically based
(mechanistic or phenomenological) approaches into multi-phase
flow calculations. The main goal remains an attempt to reduce the
impact of empirical correlations on multi-phase predictions. State-
of-the-art multi-phase modelling efforts can be studied in two
different but interrelated fields of interest: small-scale and large-
scale, depending on the length scale of interest to the modeller.
During recent years, the oil and gas industry has paid particular
attention to large-scale modelling of multi-phase flows. However,
small-scale modelling promises to bring important physical insights
into the quest for more accurate and reliable modelling of multi-
phase flow in the oil and gas industry in the foreseeable future.
Large-scale Interest
State-of-the-art large-scale multi-phase flow modelling in the oil and
gas industry is largely based on mechanistic models. One of the
distinguished features of a mechanistic model is the need for a
reliable tool for the prediction of flow pattern transitions for a given
set of operational conditions. Perhaps the earliest attempt to
58
introduce a fully phenomenological description of how transitions
occur among the different flow patterns was the work developed
by Taitel and Dukler, which focused on horizontal and near-
horizontal pipes. The work of Taitel and Dukler is considered one
of the classic papers in multi-phase predictions that began to
incorporate more physical insight into analysis in the petroleum
industry. This work led the way for subsequent research in the
area, and most of their transition criteria are still in use in more
recent two-phase flow models. Few years after that initial work,
Taitel and co-workers extended the model for the vertical and near-
vertical case and Barnea extended the phenomenological approach
to the whole range of pipe inclinations in the 1980s. These three
works are commonly referenced among researchers in the area, with
a number of attempts at improvement.
Additional steady-state comprehensive mechanistic models for two-
phase flow in vertical wells, horizontal pipes and deviated wells were
presented by Ansari, Xiao, Kaya and co-workers in the 1990s. All
these mechanistic models were developed at the Tulsa University
Fluid Flow Projects and are usually referred to as TUFFP models.
Nowadays, there are also a number of commercially available two-
phase flow packages, which include various features intended to
accomplish specific tasks. Examples include OLGA, TACITE, PEPITE
and PIPESIM, among others.
Modern multi-phase flow analysis models the flow of oil and gas
through pipelines by invoking the basic principles of continuum
mechanics and thermodynamics. Depending on how these
equations are applied and how the interactions between phases are
described, the most widely used two-phase models are the
homogeneous model (flow treated as a single phase with averaged
fluid properties), drift-flux model (flow described in terms of an
averaged local velocity difference between the phases), separated
model (phases considered to be flowing in separated zones of the
channel) and two-fluid model (a multi-fluid model that considers
two flowing phases and their interactions).
In the last decade, a great deal of attention has also been devoted
to mechanistic or ‘phenomenological’ models – i.e. models trying to
capture specific features of individual flow patterns – in which
simplified conservation equations are invoked while the main focus
is the prediction of pressure drop and hold-up. However, in previous
decades, the challenge of modelling two-phase flows
by invoking such fundamental laws had been circumvented by
reliance on empirical and semi-empirical correlations, especially in
the oil industry.
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Multi-phase Flow Analysis in Oil and Gas Engineering Systems and its Modelling

Perhaps one of the most fundamental and rigorous approaches to
the study of large-scale multi-phase flow currently in use in the
petroleum industry is the two-fluid model. In the two-fluid model,
separate conservation equations (mass, momentum and energy) are
written for each of the two phases for a total of six equations.
These equations are coupled with terms describing the interaction
between phases. In this two-phase flow method of analysis, as
well as in all the others, empiricism cannot be completely avoided,
since additional closure relationships are needed. Empiricism
are a continuum and invokes the basic laws of continuum mechanics
in one dimension coupled with a thermodynamic phase behaviour
model. In their work, the required semi-empirical relationships
needed to give mathematical closure to the model are discussed
in detail.
Small-scale Interest and Computational Physics
The study of small-scale multi-phase flow has proved to be extremely
difficult for researchers due to the elusive nature of the phenomena

Perhaps one of the most fundamental and

rigorous approaches to the study of large-scale
multi-phase flow currently in use in the
petroleum industry is the two-fluid model.

comes into the picture during attempts to model the variety of
constitutive relationships that show up in conservation equations.
For instance, Ayala et al.2 have presented a unified two-fluid model
for the analysis of natural gas flow in pipeline in multi-phase flow
regimes. Their formulation assumes that both gas and its condensate
and the inherent limitations of experimental set-ups. A great deal of
progress has been made on the development of useful small-scale
experimental studies, but numerical experiments or models still
remain the most effective way of studying such detailed flow
behaviour. The challenge of modelling small-scale multi-phase flow

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Ayala_edit.qxp 4/7/07 10:49 Page 60
Multi-phase Flow Analysis in Oil and Gas Engineering Systems and its Modelling
resides in the finite nature of the computer power typically available
to the modeller and the difficulty of tracking separated phases (and
interfaces between them) with sharply different properties.
The interplay of these two factors has historically limited the
complexity of the systems that can be studied using small-scale
simulation. However, during the last decade, major progress
has been achieved by implementing a variety of numerical
techniques, which typically depend upon the flow pattern type that
prevails under the conditions of the study. The study of small-scale
phenomena started when a group of scientists at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory began to develop the basis of Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in the early and mid-1960s. In multi-phase
flow modelling within small-scale interest, the Navier-Stokes
equations – with the appropriate boundary conditions – are solved
through a suitable numerical method – e.g. finite volumes,
finite differences, finite elements or spectral methods. The
main problem arises when considering that some boundary
conditions are time-dependent, since they are located at phase
boundaries, which are free to move, deform, break up or coalesce.
Different methods have been proposed; here we mention a few
of them.
Large-scale modelling includes the use of
transient and steady-state two-fluid models,
as well as a variety of steady-state
mechanistic models.
The most common small-scale modelling approach discretises the
flow domain using a regular and stationary grid – i.e. the well-
known Eulerian frame of reference for fluid motion. The first small-
scale Eulerian method proposed was the marker-and-cell (MAC)
method, where marker particles distributed uniformly in each fluid
were used to identify each fluid. Using this method, in the late 1960s
Harlow and Shanon studied the splash when a drop hits a liquid
surface. The MAC method has become obsolete since then and
has largely been replaced by others that use marker functions
instead – e.g. the so-called volume-of-fluid (VOF) method. In the
VOF method, the transition between two fluids takes place within
the context of one grid cell. The main problem associated with this
is the difficulty of maintaining a sharply defined boundary between
two flowing fluids. In order to address this difficulty, level-set (LT)
methods use continuous – rather than discontinuous – marker
functions in order to identify the fluids. The use of continuous
marker functions creates smooth transition zones between the two
fluids of interest and avoids the difficulty of maintaining a sharply
defined boundary.
Some other small-scale modelling approaches use the Lagrangian
frame of reference for fluid motion. In Lagrangian methods, the
numerical grid follows the fluid and deforms with it. In this
approach, the motion of the fluid interface needs to be modelled in
60
order to accurately capture the new fluid positions at each time-
step. At every time-step, the grid is refitted and adjusted to match
the location of the new, displaced boundaries. In the 1980s, Ryskin
and Leal used this method to study the steady rise of buoyant,
deformable, axisymmetric bubbles, while Oran and Boris studied the
break-up of a two-dimensional drop. A similar approach, called
front tracking, is also used, where a separate front marks the
interface but a fixed grid is used for the fluid within each phase;
however, the fixed grid is modified near the front so a single grid
line follows the interface.
Small-scale modelling typically takes advantage of certain multi-
phase flow conditions that can greatly simplify the modelling
process. For example, it is possible to simplify the Navier-Stokes
equations by ignoring inertia completely (Stokes flow) or by ignoring
viscous effect (inviscid flows) in the limit of low and high Reynolds
numbers, respectively. These two limiting cases are typically
studied with boundary integral methods. The study of dispersed
flows, for example, can be made especially amenable to small-scale
simulation since the study of one of the phases (i.e. the dispersed
phase) can be greatly simplified. Two main methods are used to
simulate dispersed flows: the Eulerian-Eulerian or the Eulerian-
Lagrangian approach. In the Eulerian-Eulerian approach, separated
equations are solved for the dispersed and the continuous
phase. No attempt is made to resolve the detailed motion
of the particles, and thus closure relations are necessary for
the unresolved motion and the forces between the particle and
the continuous phase. The closure relations are determined
through experimental correlations (similar to the computation of
turbulent flows using Reynolds average Navier-Stokes equations).
In the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, the dispersed phase is
represented by points moving inwards and otherwise constant-
density flow – i.e. the so-called point particle approximation.
The particles are followed using a Lagrangian approach and
the forces (such as drag forces) on the particle are specified
by analytical and experimental models. In some cases, the particles
are assumed to have no effect on the fluid flow, but in other
cases the forces from the particles are added to the right-hand
side of the Navier-Stokes equation of the continuous phase.
However, none of these approaches can model the detailed flow
around the particle that affects the interactions of nearby particles.
These interactions are important to understand particle coalescence,
which is the first step towards a possible flow pattern change.
Ayala et al. 3 have recently developed a first attempt to
incorporate such interactions through a new hybrid direct numerical
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Multi-phase Flow Analysis in Oil and Gas Engineering Systems and its Modelling

simulation (HDNS). This approach consists of direct numerical
simulation of the undisturbed continuous
and an analytical representation of local disturbance flows induced
by the particles.
In addition, a relatively new method in small-scale modelling is
the Lattice Boltzmann method. Lattice Boltzmann methods are
based on kinetic theory and thus no Navier-Stokes equations are
solved. Instead, the method considers a typical volume element of
fluid to be composed of a collection of ‘particles’ that are
represented by a particle velocity distribution function for each fluid
component at each grid point. In this novel approach, the rules
governing the motion and collisions of these ‘particles’ are designed
in such a way that the time-average motion of the particles is
consistent with the Navier-Stokes equation.
Concluding Remarks
The most popular modelling approach nowadays in the oil and
gas industry – above and beyond the use of long-established,
fully empirical equations – is large-scale mechanistic modelling.
Large-scale modelling includes the use of transient and steady-state
two-fluid models, as well as a variety of steady-state mechanistic
models. However, large-scale multi-phase flow modelling relies
much more heavily on empirical or semi-empirical correlations
phase flow to model the phenomena than small-scale multi-phase analysis
does. Small-scale multi-phase flow analysis relies on the direct
solution of the most fundamental fluid dynamic equations, thus
greatly reducing the need for empiricism. The limitation of
small-scale multi-phase analysis resides in its scope, which is not
currently amenable to the study of large industrial systems. The
oil and gas industry relies on large-scale analysis and does not
currently use small-scale methods for the simulation and modelling
of oil and gas systems, but the physical insights that can be
obtained by small-scale simulation are invaluable. It is widely
expected that the demystification of small-scale intricacies of
multi-phase flow phenomena can greatly help large-scale modelling
in the foreseeable future. The simultaneous implementation of
large-scale and small-scale simulation represents a powerful
combination that can significantly improve our understanding
of multi-phase flow phenomena. Small-scale simulation, for
example, could play an important role in significantly improving the
nature and reliability of the semi-empirical relationships needed
by large-scale simulation models. Small-scale simulation can also
define more reliable flow pattern transition models, which are the
backbone of the large-scale multi-phase flow simulators in
use today. ■

1. Brill J, Arirachakaran S, State of the Art in Multiphase Flow, natural Gas Pipelines, J Energy Resources and Tech, Collisions of Hydrodynamically-interacting Particles, J Comput
J Pet Tech, 1992;44(5):538–41. 2003;125:284–93. Phys, 2007;doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2006.11.016.
2. Ayala LF, et al., Low-liquid Loading Multiphase Flow in 3. Ayala OM, et al., A Hybrid Approach for Simulating Turbulent

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