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Experimental and computational investigations on severe slugging in a catenary riser

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Abstract

Severe slugging can occur in a pipeline-riser system at relatively low liquid and gas flow rates during gas-oil transportation, possibly causing unexpected damage to the production facilities. Experiments with air and water are conducted in a horizontal and downward inclined pipeline followed by a catenary riser in order to investigate the mechanism and characteristics of severe slugging. A theoretical model is introduced to compare with the experiments. The results show that the formation mechanism of severe slugging in a catenary riser is different from that in a vertical riser due to the riser geometry and five flow patterns are obtained and analyzed. A gas-liquid mixture slug stage is observed at the beginning of one cycle of severe slugging, which is seldom noticed in previous studies. Based on both experiments and computations, the time period and variation of pressure amplitude of severe slugging are found closely related to the superficial gas velocity, implying that the gas velocity significantly influences the flow patterns in our experiments. Moreover, good agreements between the experimental data and the numerical results are shown in the stability curve and flow regime map, which can be a possible reference for design in an offshore oil-production system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Ship and Deep-Sea Exploration, Shanghai, 200240, China

    **-long Duan, Ke Chen & Yun-xiang You

  2. State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    **-long Duan, Ke Chen & Yun-xiang You

  3. Marine Design & Research Institute of China, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Song Gao

Authors
  1. **-long Duan
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  2. Ke Chen
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  3. Yun-xiang You
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  4. Song Gao
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Correspondence to Ke Chen.

Additional information

Foundation item: This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11272211) and the National Program on Key Basic Research Project of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2015CB251203).

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Duan, Jl., Chen, K., You, Yx. et al. Experimental and computational investigations on severe slugging in a catenary riser. China Ocean Eng 31, 653–664 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13344-017-0075-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13344-017-0075-5

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