Abstract

An Experimental Study of Three Phase Flow Through Helical Coil and Control Valve in Series

Author(s): P. Krishnamoorthy and P. Uma Maheswari

Experimental investigations have been carried out to evaluate the three phase pressure drop and the hold-up for Oil + Water + Gas flow through horizontal helical coils and control valve. Three phase flow occurs in petroleum industries especially in oil rigs where crude oil is explored in bulk quantity. While pumping crude oil in the oil rig not only the crude oil is coming alone, it is mixed with water and natural gas and air. So we have to pump these three components together. These three components (oil + water + gas) forms three phase flow. That is three immiscible fluids, such a complex mixture is pumped in the oil rig pump and it is transported in pipes to the on shore refinery. The design of such pump, control valve and pipelines is very difficult. In this work, we have designed an experimental set up of such kind of three phase flow through pipes and helical coil and control valve in the laboratory. Various three phase flow data for kerosene + water + air, diesel + water + air, groundnutoil + water + gas etc. have been collected. Various pressure drop data across the helical coil and the control valve have been collected. By using these data, the flow versus pressure drop chart has been drawn. By linearising the curve by the second order equation the PID controller has been designed, which is controlling the control valve. By adjusting the control valve, we can change the flow patterns, oil flow rate and maximize the extraction of crude oil exploration from the rig by using minimum of pump energy.