Effect of Pipe Inclination Angle on Gas–Liquid Flow Using Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) Data

Abstract

Pipes that make up oil and gas wells are not vertical but could be inclined at any angle between vertical and the horizontal which is a significant technology of modern drilling-Experimental data on time varying liquid holdup for 0 and 30 pipe inclination angles wereanalyzed and interpreted. Parameters such as void fraction, slug frequency, lengths of liquid slug, Taylor bubble and slug unit, structure velocity and pressure drop were calculated from the experimental data. It was observed that an increase in pipe inclination from 0 o to 30 o brings about a corresponding reduction in average void fraction. Moreover, there is no particular correlation that gave better results in the two inclination angles based on the drift -flux model considered. The results of the comparison between the pressure gradient concerned with the 0 o and 30 o pipe inclination angles considered in this study using the Beggs and Brill (1973) correlation showed that the total pressure gradient increases with an increase in pipe inclination as a consequence of an increase in both gravitational and frictional pressure gradient. This study has provided useful information of the effect of pipe inclination on void fraction distribution using electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) data.