[CCoE Notice] Ph.D. Thesis Defense: July 23, 130p

[Grayson, Audrey A]

A Computational Study on Horizontal Pipe Flows with Multiple Crossflow Inlets

Hilario Torres

Date: 7/23/14
Time: 1:30 PM
Location: Mechanical Engineering Small Conference Room (S208)
Committee Members: Dr. Ralph Metcalfe, Dr. Stanley Kleis, Dr. Giles Auchmuty

Computational fluid dynamics was used to investigate the flow in pipes with multiple crossflow inlets as several geometric and boundary condition parameters were varied. The varied parameters included the spacing between inlets, angular phasing of inlets, inlet size, and the pressure boundary condition applied at the cross flow inlets. A total of 150 simulations were conducted, consisting of 30 geometries with 5 different sets of pressure boundary conditions for each geometry. All simulations were restricted to single phase, laminar, incompressible, and isothermal flows. The changes in the total flow rate contributed from all inlets as well as the relative contribution of each inlet are the key results that are presented.  In general the total flow rate increases as the inlet size and pressure are increased. The flow becomes “blocked”, meaning that the downstream inlets produce a majority of the total flow rate, as the inlet size is increased or the inlet pressure is decreased. Although the effect of pressure diminishes as the distance between inlets decreases due to the difference in pressure gradient between inlets becoming small. At small distances between inlets the angular phase of the inlets also has an effect on the total flow rate. This effect is due to the direct interaction of the inlet jets with each other and decreases as the distance between inlets increases. This study was designed to gain a better understanding of  the flow in horizontal wellbores for oil and gas applications but its results could be applied anywhere that laminar incompressible jets enter a confined crossflow.

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