Abstract
In the oil and gas pipeline industry, one way to achieve continued flow while replacing a section of pipe is to introduce a stopple and insert a bypass. However, this process creates two flow-dead legs, which are segments of the original pipeline, typically several pipe diameters long, with capped terminations. Both experimental flow testing and computational fluid dynamics simulation of separate-phase liquid and gas flows were conducted to evaluate free water division in the dead leg and lateral path. This paper presents the results from experimental testing, which demonstrates there is a maximum liquid flow rate bypassing the dead leg and flowing down the lateral path at a given gas flow rate. In the event water enters the dead leg, the experimental testing shows that complete liquid removal is not possible, even with high gas sweep rates because droplets remain in both the inlet and lateral paths.
