Blind-tee is an important component in offshore piping systems for the multiphase flow mixing and measurements of oil and gas products. In this paper, a three-dimensional numerical study has been performed on the single and two-phase flows in the pipelines with blind tees in order to analyze the mixing conditions. The effects of blind-tee pipes on the gas-liquid bubble flow in different orientations are investigated, and detailed comparisons are made to reveal the differences between the single and two-phase flows in blind tees. It can help to further understand the multiphase flow physics and mixing conditions in blind-tee pipes.
The pipe fittings and joints occur very often in offshore and subsea piping systems, which are applied to change the flow direction of oil and gas products. The common pipe fittings and joints include elbows (Crawford, et al., 2009; Dutta, et al., 2016), blind tees (Han, et al., 2020), T-junctions and Y-junctions (Beneš, et al., 2013; Su, et al., 2018), which would show different flow characteristics with each other (Maurya, et al., 2021). The flow characteristics inside these connections need to be studied in order to provide theoretical basis for an appropriate flow engineering design.
Among various geometric configurations of the connections for the process piping systems, blind tees are applied to promote the mixing condition in the technologies of multiphase flow meters and also widely used instead of standard elbows in industrial practice. Most multiphase flow meters on these pipelines require an upstream blind tee to promote the mixing condition of the incoming gas-liquid flow for an accurate determination of individual phase fraction and flow rate (Brister, 2013; Pinguet, et al., 2014). Furthermore, blind tees are widely used instead of standard elbows in industrial practice to reduce the corrosion and erosion caused by particles (Chen, et al., 2006; Zhou, et al., 2022). Thus, the interest of this study is focused on simulating the flow in blind-tee pipes.
