CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
















1.1 MULTIPHASE FLOW

In many branches of engineering the major preoccupation of those involved in research, design
and operation is the flow of fluids. However, it is not the flow of just gases or of just liquids that
they are focused on. An examination of the flows in many pieces of equipment from the
hydrocarbon production, power generation and chemical industries would also reveal that many, if
not most, flows involve more than one phase. In other words, multiphase flow is ubiquitous. It
occurs in relatively simple equipment such as pipelines but also in the much more complex
geometries found in heat exchangers, chemical reactors and phase separators. It will become clear
from the material presented in this book that an understanding of multiphase flow is vital for the
design of safe and environmentally friendly equipment, as well as for its construction at minimum
capital cost and for its efficient operation.
In many cases, the two phases are gas (or vapour) and liquid. There are, however, many other
possible combinations - solid/gas (fluidized beds, pneumatic conveying), solid/liquid (hydraulic
conveying), two immiscible liquids (oil/water), and occasionally more than two phases
(gas/oil/water). This text, however, concentrates on gas (or vapour)/liquid systems.
Multiphase flow is extremely complex. Its study has attracted much effort over a long period,
and has resulted in a large number of equations and correlations, many of which are empirical.


1.2 GAS/LIQUID FLOW

Within multiphase flow gas/liquid flow probably occurs more than any other combination of
phases. Research in this field initially developed as separate topics according to the motivating
industry: oil/gas production; nuclear or fossil fuelled power generation; reboilers and condensers
for the refining and chemical process industry. Nowadays there is much more contact and
interchange between these groups. This is an important step as there is experimental evidence that
there are distinct similarities between the behaviour of multiphase flows in equipment as diverse as
oil or gas wells, thermal cracking furnaces and boiler tubes in power stations. In these examples,
the fraction of vapour increases as the flow proceeds up the tube. In an oil well, this is because the
2
drop in pressure over a vertical height, which can be of the order of kilometres, causes the lighter
fraction within the hydrocarbon mixture to flash off. In the tubes of a cracking furnace, which are
of the several orders of magnitude shorter, direct heat input from a flame leads to a cracking
reaction. This converts the heavy oil into lighter fractions which then vaporise. In both cases, the
increasing vapour fraction leads to a succession of very different dispositions of the phases about
the channel cross-section.
As well as this variation with position, multiphase flow may also vary with time. This may be
systematic or because of changes in time of a flow that is usually steady. Such transient behaviour
is found, for example, in an offshore pipeline as the various wells connected to it are brought on
line or taken out for maintenance or testing. However, there can also be temporal variations within
nominally steady state conditions.
Two examples will be used to illustrate possible applications. The first comes from the oil and
gas industry. Hydrocarbons produced from oil or gas fields inevitably contain both natural gas and
oil or condensed hydrocarbons with higher molecular weights than the gas. This mixture of phases
is drawn from the ground through well tubing. Because of modern drilling techniques, which
permit the tapping of hydrocarbon reservoirs several miles from the production platform, this
tubing can be at the whole range of orientations from horizontal to vertical, Fig. 1.1. As well as
flow rate/pressure drop/pipe diameter relationship, there is a need for knowledge on the
distribution of liquid around the pipe walls to inform engineers developing corrosion inhibitor
strategies. At ground or platform level, there is usually a choke valve to control the flow. The flow
is then directed around the processing area through valves, bends, expansions and contractions
until it reaches the main separator train where the phases are separated and pumped to the shore
terminal or refinery. In certain circumstances it can be more economical to pump the fluids as a
multiphase mixture over land or the seabed. For these aspects, knowledge of the way liquid arrives
is most important as is the combination of the multiphase flows at combining and dividing
junctions.
The second example comes from the refining chemical process industries. Here, the majority of
product separations use distillation columns each of which needs a supply of vapour at the bottom
and liquid at the top. These functions are carried out by heat exchangers. For the former they are
termed reboilers and for the latter application they are called condensers. This is a very significant



Wells
Pipelines
Risers
Phase separator
Gas/liquid flow in vertical
and inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in
horizontal and slightly
inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in vertical
and inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in vertical
and inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in complex
geometries
Single phase
transmission lines

Wells
Pipelines
Risers
Phase separator
Gas/liquid flow in vertical
and inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in
horizontal and slightly
inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in vertical
and inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in vertical
and inclined pipes
Gas/liquid flow in complex
geometries
Single phase
transmission lines




















Figure 1.1 Schematic of an offshore hydrocarbon production facility to illustrate some of the geometries
where multiphase flow might be found. (picture courtesy of BP).
3
user of energy, accounting for around 3% of the total world energy consumption, Hewitt et al.
(1999). Accurate design is, therefore, particularly important. Not only is there two-phase flow
within these units, but the lines connecting them to the distillation column will, in many cases, also
have a two-phase flow. In the power generation industry, where a major activity is the generation
of vapour (in this case steam for driving turbines), boilers and condensers are also found. The
second example is, therefore, relevant to a wide range of industry and is from the heat exchanger
area. Let us consider a reboiler for a distillation column. This is shown schematically in Fig. 1.2.
Though in some cases the fluids in boilers and reboilers are pumped through the heat transfer
equipment, there are many cases where movement is achieved by natural circulation such as the
case illustrated here, a Vertical Thermosyphon Reboiler. Here the driving force for the flow is the
difference in static head in the pipe from the bottom of the distillation column (full of liquid) and
the static head in the leg incorporating the heat exchanger. Because of evaporation the latter is a
mixture of vapour and liquid. In this case the heat exchanger is usually a shell and tube unit with
the process flow inside the tubes. Design of these units requires knowledge of the pressure
drop/flow rate relationship for gas/liquid flow in vertical tubes as well as of heat transfer. It also
requires knowledge of the flow in pipe fittings such bends, enlargements and contractions to deal
with the outlet pipework. Another aspect worthy of consideration is the loss of heat transfer
efficiency which might occur if vapour rather than liquid is in contact with the heat transfer
surface. There are elements of this problem which are strictly heat transfer, however, as will be
shown below, in some cases it is the flow which controls the occurrence of these unwelcome
situations.


1.3 THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

The earliest methods employed for gas/liquid flows were essentially empirical methods. Though
there has been some retrospective provision of theories to explain the relationships proposed
in some cases, many others were purely a fit to experimental data. Where the ranges of parameters



Figure 1.2 Vertical Thermosphyon Reboiler the second example.
4
were very limited the methods have been extremely useful and successful. An example of this is
the case of fossil fueled boiler tubes where interpolation within the data bases or use of equations
fitted to the data gives satisfactorily accurate results.
The models of physical processes developed should follow the quote from Albert Einstein
given by Levenspiel (2000) which enjoined us to Keep things as simple as possible but not
simpler. There should be minimal need for physical constants which have to be fitted from
experimental data. Obviously, it is not always possible to eliminate these so called constants.
However, their number should be minimized.


1.4 DEFINITIONS AND BASIC PARAMETERS

Before concentrating on gas/liquid flow in the remainder of this book, it will probably be useful to
remind ourselves of some definitions and balances. This will be done in general terms for a
multiphase flow consisting of n phases. In this scheme the phases could be solid, liquid or gas.
These types of phases have the following properties.

(a) Solids. When it is involved in flow processes, the solid phase is to be found in the form of
particles. These can have other names, e.g., the term lumps has been used for larger
particles whilst powders has been favoured for much smaller, finer particles. In most
work the solid phase can be considered as being incompressible with a non-deformable
interface. The behaviour of particles in a flowing system very much depends on the size
of the individual element involved. Very fine particles can be very effective and faithful
flow followers whereas larger particles might not be responsive to the fluctuations of
velocity in a turbulent flow. Another characteristic of the particulate solids is that their
density is usually greater than any gas phase and can, indeed, be greater than that of
liquids. This has particular relevance in flow in horizontal channels where stratification,
i.e., gravitational separation, can occur. From this it can be seen that knowledge of the
particle size distribution is essential in modelling these cases.

(b) Liquids. In multiphase flows, liquid phases can appear in one of two guises. It can be a
continuous phase with other phases, e.g., solid (particles), liquid (immiscible drops) or
gases (bubbles), dispersed within it. Alternatively it could be in a dispersed form as
drops in gas or another (immiscible) liquid. Though there are some (non-Newtonian)
liquids with solid-like properties such as elasticity, the majority of liquids have
significantly different features. In contrast to solids, where a small elastic deformation
takes place (if the force is not too high) allowing an equal and opposite force to be
transmitted through the solid to balance the imposed force if the solid is to remain at rest.
Liquids do not behave in this manner as they are fluids and a balancing force only exists
if the liquid is in motion. Another major difference between liquids and solids is that the
interface between two immiscible fluids is highly deformable. The deformation is limited
by interfacial tension, the energy required to form a unit area of interface. This is the
reason why spherical drops are formed which liquid is the non-continuous phase. The
sphere is the geometry for minimum interfacial energy per unit volume for the liquid. The
contact of the liquid with solid surface is another important consideration. This aspect is
usually termed wetting. When the liquid is in contact with the wall and with a second
fluid phase that is also in contact with the wall, the contact line is termed the triple
interface. The contact angle is defined as that subtended by the fluid-liquid and solid-
liquid interfaces. The value of this contact angle depends on the relative interfacial
energies of the three combinations (liquid-fluid, fluid-solid, and solid-liquid). For most
systems it takes values <90 implying that the phase wets the surface. The major
5
exception which occurs naturally is mercury on say a glass surface. Some surfaces can be
modified to produce non wetting systems, an arrangement which can have advantages in
heat transfer during condensation drop-wise condensation. Liquids are, on the whole,
more compressible than solids. However, this compressibility is small and liquid are
usually taken to be incompressible.

(c) Gases. These are also fluids and have properties similar to liquids. However, they are
much more compressible than liquids but this compressibility is only important in
multiphase flows low pressures and high flow rates. This last might be judged through the
Mach number for the gas phase > 0.2.

The major driving force for multiphase research is motivated by requirement of the design and
operation of industrial plant. Important questions usually focus on a limited range of parameters:

(i) Pressure drop. This is a key parameter in much design. The difference in pressure
between two points is necessary to specify the pumping power required to move the
multiphase mixture through pipelines and other pieces of equipment such as heat
exchangers. If the available pressure difference is fixed, then the pressure difference/flow
rate relationship is crucial to size the pipes and other equipment. The relationship is also
important in the determination of additional parameters such as heat or mass transfer
coefficients.

(ii) Mean phase content. This parameter gives the volume or cross-sectional area fraction of
a particular phase. In gas-liquid flows, the gas mean-phase content,
g
, is usually referred
to as the void fraction. Its compliment, the liquid phase fraction,
l
or H
l
, is normally
termed the liquid holdup. In those flows containing solids, the mean solid-phase contents
is
s
. There can be differences between the actual phase contents and those calculated
from the volumetric phase flow rates which are due to different velocities of the phases.
The values of phase fractions are very important for the calculation of multiphase
pressure drops as well as inventories which are important for weight, economic and safety
considerations. It can be important in gas-liquid mixtures in nuclear reactors where the
void fraction is key in controlling the degree of neutron absorption and hence reactivity.

(iii) Heat and mass transfer coefficients. These are the ratios of appropriate fluxes to
temperature or concentration differences. They can be defined in terms of local or overall
conditions. These parameters are essential in the design or heat transfer or contacting
equipment and are related to the flow of the multiphase mixture.

(iv) Flux limitations. These can be limitations in mass or heat fluxes. A typical case of the
former is critical flow which is particularly important in multiphase systems as it tends to
occur at lower velocities than those for single phase systems. Another is the
countercurrent flow limitation (also known as flooding) found in, for example, reflux
condensers. It is important to be aware of heat flux limitations as these can result in
strong deterioration of heat transfer coefficient and hence a loss of efficiency and in case
where the heat transfer is flux controlled excessive wall temperature and even
equipment damage.

(v) Mechanical problems. There are problems where flow can cause mechanical problems
for example in erosion and/or corrosion and vibration damage. The latter can be
particularly important in shell and tube heat exchangers where flow on the shell side can
result in vibration and occasionally catastrophic damage.
6
(vi) Stability and control. Equipment involving multiphase flow can be subject to
instabilities which can produce fluctuations in flow rate or pressure. These can lead to
further problems, e.g., in heated systems. Transients in the flow are inevitable at start up
and shut downs. Moreover, they can result in surges and waterhammer effects. The
design of the appropriate control systems demands understanding of the time-response
behaviour of multiphase systems.

Consider n phases flowing in a channel each with a volumetric flow rate of V . Then the volume
flow rate fraction, , is given by
i

=
=
n
k
k
i
i
V
V
1

(1.1)

where V and V are the volume flow rates of the ith and kth phases respectively.
i

The superficial velocity (or volume flux), u

=
=
n
k
ks m
u u
1

The average phase velocity of the ith phase is given by


S
V u
u
i
i
i
is
i


= = (1.4)

These velocities are related to mass flow rates by

(1.5) S u M
i i i i
=

and the mass flux, , of the ith phase is defined as
i
m


is i i i i
i
i
u u
S
M
m = = =

(1.6)

The mass flow quality of the ith phase is defined as
7

=
=
n
k
k
i
i
m
m
x
1

(1.7)

The fluid mass per unit volume of channel is usually called the multiphase density and defined as

(1.8)
n
MP k k
k 1

=
=



For a channel of cross-sectional area, S, and inclined at an angle, , to the horizontal the equation
for conservation of mass may be written as:

Rate of mass mass mass
creation = outflow + inflow + storage rate =0 (1.9)
of mass rate rate rate

In terms of the symbols defined above, this becomes

( ) ( )
i i i i i i it i i i i i
u S z u S m u S S z 0
z t

(
+ + +
(


= (1.10)

where is the rate of conversion of phase i to other phases (mass flow per unit length of
channel from phase i to other phases). This quantity is positive if phase i is evaporating or
sublimating and is negative if phase i is being formed from other phases by, for example
condensation. Rearranging and simplifying Equation (1.10) yields
it
m

( ) ( )
i i i i i it
S u S
t z


+ =

m (1.11)

The mass continuity equation for the mixture can be obtained by summing the versions of
Equation (1.11) for each phase remembering that the net interfacial transfer is zero and the
definition of mass flux given by Equation (1.6). This results in:

( ) ( )
MP
S mS
t z

+

0 = (1.12)

In a similar manner, the principle of momentum conservation can be applied to the same element
of length, z, to yield:

Rate of momentum momentum momentum sum of the forces
momentum = outflow + inflow + storage = acting on the control (1.13)
creation rate rate rate volume

At a given cross-section the momentum flux is given by u M . The forces in question are due to
pressure gradient, to wall shear and to gravity. The momentum terms in Equation (1.13) can be
expressed as:
i

8
(
i i i i i i i i i
M u z M u M u u S z
z t

| |
( + +
|


\ .

) (1.14)

The sum of forces is:


| | | |

)
`

|
.
|

\
|

|
.
|

\
|

+
n
i k k
ik ik iw iw
i i i i i i
z P z P
zg S S
z
z p S p
z
z S p S p
, 1
sin


(1.15)

where
iw
is the shear stress between phase I and the channel walls and P
iw
is the periphery
between phase i and the wall. Similarly,
ik
is the shear stress between phase i and phase k and P
ik

is the interface between phase i and phase k. It may occur that for a specific phase, P
iw
and/or P
ik

may be zero according to the spatial disposition of the phases about the channel cross-section. The
interfacial stresses could be affected by interfacial mass transfer, should this occur. If Equations
(1.14) and (1.15) are equated and the resulting equation simplified,

( )
(
2
1
1 1
n
iw iw
i i i ik ik i i i i i i
k ,k i
P p
g sin P u u S
z S S t S z

=

+ = +

)

(1.16)

And summing the equation for each phase gives


2
1 1 1
1
n n n
kw kw
MP k k k k k k
k k k
P p
g sin u u S
z S t S z

= = =
| | |

= + |
|

\ . \

|
|
|
.
(1.17)

Of course the interfacial shear stress terms disappear as they sum to zero. It is sometime clearer to
rewrite this equation in terms of mass fluxes:


2
2
1 1
1
n n
kw kw k
MP
k k
k k
P x p m
g sin m S
z S t S z

= =
| |

= +

\ .

|
|

(1.18)

If the flow was at steady-state and the duct in question had a constant cross-section and the wall
shear stress has a constant value around the periphery, Equation (1.18) can be reduced to


2
2
1
n
w k
MP
k k
k
P x p
m
z S z

=
| |

= + + |
|

\ .

g sin (1.19)

This is a commonly used equation for predicting pressure drop. The terms on the right hand side of
the equation represent the frictional, accelerational and gravitational components of pressure drop
respectively.
Specific versions of these general equations are used in Chapters 2, 6 and 7.
9
1.5 THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

As noted above, this book concentrates on phenomenological or mechanistic models rather than
the more empirical methods used in industry in the past. However, to place the book in context,
Chapter 2 will review these empirical methods with particular emphasis on their predictive
accuracy. The structures within gas/liquid flows are then considered in Chapter 3 which goes on to
assess the properties of flow patterns and consider empirical, usually graphical methods for
predicting their occurrence. It will also look at the interrelation between these and heat transfer,
particularly phase change. The next three chapters consider vertical upflow. Chapter 4 will present
models for the transition between flow patterns; Chapter 5 will focus on bubbly, slug and churn
flows whilst Chapter 6 will present information on annular flow. The latter can be the most
prevalent flow pattern in many applications and so merits more attention. The next two chapters
consider non-vertical flows concentrating on the horizontal case. Chapter 7 examines the
transitions between flow patterns whilst Chapter 8 focuses on stratified, slug and annular flow. The
emphasis then changes from pipes to more complicated geometries. Chapter 9 reviews methods for
geometries more complex than just pipes whilst Chapter 10 presents available information on
gas/liquid flows at T-junctions, both for combining flows but with a strong emphasis on dividing
flows.
The book is completed by appendices containing examples based on hand calculations and
useful information for these calculations.