Experimental investigation of the vertical upward single and two-phase flow pressure drops through gate and ball valves

Zeghloul, Ammar; Bouyahiaoui, Hiba; Azzi, Abdelwahid; Hasan, Abbas; Al-sarkhi, Abdelsalam

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the pressure drop through valves in vertical upward flows. Experiments were carried out using a 1¼" (DN 32) ball and a gate valve. Five opening areas have been investigated from fully open to the nearly fully closed valve, using air with a superficial velocity of (0-3.5 m/s) and water (0.05-0.91 m/s). These ranges cover single-phase and the bubbly, slug and churn two-phase flow regimes. It was found that for the single-phase flow experiments, the valve coefficient increases with the valve opening and is the same, in both valves, for the openings smaller than 40%. The single-phase pressure drop increases with the liquid flowrate and decreases with the opening area. The two-phase flow pressure drop was found considerably increased by reducing the opening area for both valves. It reaches its maximum values at 20% opening for the ball valve and 19% opening for the gate valve. It was also inferred that at fully opening condition, the two-phase flow multiplier, for both valves, has been found close to unity for most of the tested flow conditions. For the 40 and 20 % valve openings the two-phase multiplier decreases in the power-law with liquid holdup for the studied flow conditions. Models proposed originally for evaluating the pressure drop through an orifice in single-phase and two-phase flows were also applied and assessed in the present experimental data.

Citation

Zeghloul, A., Bouyahiaoui, H., Azzi, A., Hasan, A., & Al-sarkhi, A. (2020). Experimental investigation of the vertical upward single and two-phase flow pressure drops through gate and ball valves. Journal of Fluids Engineering, 142(2), Article FE-19-1329. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4044833

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 1, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Oct 4, 2019
• Publication Date: 2020-02
• Deposit Date: Sep 23, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 5, 2020
• Journal: Journal of fluids engineering
• Print ISSN: 0098-2202
• Publisher: American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 142
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: FE-19-1329
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4044833
• Keywords: Gates (Closures); Pressure drop; Two-phase flow; Valves; Flow (Dynamics); Slug flows; Water
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/2741081
• Publisher URL: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/fluidsengineering/article-abstract/doi/10.1115/1.4044833/975522/Experimental-investigation-of-the-vertical-upward?redirectedFrom=fulltext
• Contract Date: Oct 22, 2019