Study of Liquid Flow with Bubbles in Pipes

In oil and gas industry, fluid flow in pipe is a common occurrence and creates several critical issues. Produced wellhead fluids are often mixtures of different compounds of carbon, all with different densities, vapor pressures, and other characteristics. The change of pressure and temperature results in the evolving of gas as the production is lifted up to higher elevation. This multiphase flow complicates the flow metering. Cavitation, which involves the evolving and collapsing of bubbles in liquid, is another problem related to fluid flow. The existence of bubbles in liquid flow causes unfavorable issues for example pressure drop through pipeline, vibration, cavitation and multiphase metering. Thus, the objective of this project is to study the behavior of bubbles in flowing liquid and understand how it affects the fluid flow.