CFD Simulation of Various Types of Solid Particles in Oil Pipe Flow to Evaluate the Pressure Losses

In the process of liquids transportation, mainly the oil products, one of the most important elements is the pipelines flow assurance through maintaining lowest pressure losses. This study presents investigation results on the effect of the solid in liquid horizontal pipe flow. The influence of the particle’s diameter (0.25mm, 0.50mm, 1.00mm) and concentrations (10%, 15%, 20%) on the pressure loss of pipelines at various flow rates was simulated and studied computationally using the ANSYS-CFX software. The mesh independency study has been achieved so that the results produced will not be affected by the number of mesh. Three cases of each fluid were simulated, as single phase flow, as homogenous solid in liquid flow, and as two layer flow. The simulated liquids, oil and water, were considered as Newtonian fluids, and the flow was fully developed region, at constant temperature.
Results demonstrated that the higher the fluid velocity, the pressure loss along the pipelines will be higher in both homogeneous and two layer two phase flow. In homogeneous flow, sand concentration of 10% with velocity of 0.5m/s and sand size of 0.25mm will have pressure drop of 389.75 Pa while sand concentration of 20% with same velocity and sand size will have pressure drop of 515.75 Pa. However, in the case of 0.25mm and 1.00mm sand size with velocity of 0.5m/s and sand concentration of 15%, there is no significant changes on the pressure drop which is 451.50 Pa and 451.25 Pa. This indicates there is no effect of solid particle’s diameter on the pressure drop of the flow. In homogeneous two phase flow, the fluid velocity has more effects on the pressure drop.
For the two layer two phase flow, the increase of solid particle concentration will cause the increase of pressure drop. With sand concentration of 10%, 0.5m/s of fluid velocity and 0.25mm of sand size, the pressure drop is 1448 Pa. The pressure drop further increases to 1940 Pa when the sand concentration is 20% while other parameters remain the same. It is realized that the concentration of solid particles will have more effects on the pressure drop compared to the fluid velocity in two layer two phase flow.