Numerical Simulation of Two Phase Gas-Liquid flow in hydrocarbon liquid transportation pipelines

Current Computational Pipeline Modeling based leak detection systems can not accurately predict the leaks in the pipeline when crude oil goes though phase change (column separation) along the 100s of kms long pipeline (due to hills and valleys). The objective of this project is to gain fundamental insight into the two phase gas-liquid flow physics in hydrocarbon liquid transportation pipelines that transport crude oil with various physical properties of crude and with various elevations. The data obtained from the numerical simulation studies performed during the project, will be analyzed for the onset of the phase change, accurate prediction of each phase for various aspect ratios of pipeline and pipeline sizes, and elevations. The Post doc hired for this project will benefit from expanding the knowledge gained at the university and apply it to the real industry related problem. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

James Olson

Student:

Ehsan Zaman

Partner:

Vanmok Consulting Services Inc

Discipline:

Engineering - mechanical

Sector:

Oil and gas

University:

Program: