Hydrodynamic Slug Flow Modeling

Hydrodynamic slug flow is the prevailing flow regime in oil production, yet industry still lacks a comprehensive model, based on first principles, which fully describes slug flow. This paper describes a graphical technique out of which – given the superficial gas and liquid velocities – the overall hold-up, hold-up in the slug body, and hold-up in the bubble region between slugs can be determined. The model is compared to experimental slug data as well as against other empirical methods.