Experimental study on prediction model of wet gas pressure drop across single-orifice plate in horizontal pipes in the low gas phase Froude number region

Abstract

Abstract The pressure drop prediction of wet gas across single-orifice plate in horizontal pipes had been solved satisfactorily under an annular-mist flow in the upstream of orifice plates. However, this pressure drop prediction is still not clearly determined when the upstream is in an intermittent flow or stratified flow, which is corresponding to a region of low FrG (gas phase Froude number) in the flow pattern map of wet gases. In this study, the wet gas pressure drop across a single-orifice plate was experimentally investigated in the low FrG region. By the experiment, the flow pattern transition in the downstream of single-orifice plates, as well as the effects of FrG and FrL (liquid phase Froude number) on ΦG (gas phase multiplier), were determined and compared when the upstream is in the flow pattern transition and the stratified flow region, respectively. Prediction performances were examined on the available pressure drop models. It was found that no model could be capable of jointly predicting the wet gas pressure drop in the low FrG region with an acceptable accuracy. With a new method of correlating FrG and FrL simultaneously, new correlations were proposed for the low FrG region. Among which the modified Chisholm model shows the best prediction accuracies, with the prediction deviations of ΦG being within 7% and 3% when the upstream is in flow pattern transition and stratified flow region, respectively.