Turbulence and Waves in Oil-Water Pipe Flow

Both 2D and 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations have been performed for oil-water core-annular flow. The Combined Level Set and Volume of Fluid (CLSVOF) method is used for the interface tracking. The turbulent water annulus is modelled with a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach, using a low-Reynolds number k - Ɛ model. From the 2D two-phase simulations, a correlation map is obtained to describe the relation between the total flow rate, watercut, pressure drop and water holdup. A comparison is made between the numerical, modelling and experimental results. In addition, 3D single-phase Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) were carried out for the water annulus and a comparison is made between the DNS and RANS results.