An experimental study of oil-water and oil/water/gas flow in horizontal and near-horizontal pipes

This thesis describes an experimental study and discussion of gas/liquid/liquid and liquid-liquid pipe flow, where the principal objective was to collect three-phase flow data and treat this data by modified gas-liquid methods. The particular application involved is oil/water/gas pipe flow in the oil production industry. A brief economics study highlights the potential importance of developing new technology to marginal oilfield exploitation, but a literature search revealed very little quality information to be available to industry, in contrast to gas/liquid pipe flow. A test facility was constructed to investigate oil-water and oil/water/gas flow in small-diameter horizontal and near-horizontal pipes at low operating pressures. It was found that in many cases modified gas-liquid methods provided satisfactory prediction of three-phase flow regime, liquid holdup and pressure drop characteristics. This result shows variable agreement when compared to the sparse existing oil/water/gas data. Several gas-liquid methods are reviewed for their applicability to systems where the liquid is an oil-water combination. It is suggested that in some cases the chemistry of the fluids can affect the success of using modified two-phase methods.