Numerical Study on Diesel Oil Carrying Water Behaviors in Inclined Pipeline Based on Large Eddy Simulation

Water accumulation in low-lying areas of product oil pipelines always leads to corrosion damage of pipelines. Predicting the law of product oil carrying water can provide reference for the optimization of pipeline operation parameters and corrosion protection. A Volume of Fluid (VOF) model of oil-water two-phase flow based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES) was established to investigate the diesel oil carrying water behaviors in inclined uphill pipes. Through comparative study of experimental and simulation results based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method, it is proved that the two-phase flow model based on LES-VOF can capture flow pattern characteristics such as wavy stratified flow, stratified flow and dispersed flow under different flow conditions. The model was used to simulate the oil carrying water process at different inlet oil flow velocities and inclination angles of uphill pipe on experimental scale. It was found that the shear rate of the oil-water interface increases with the increase of the inlet oil velocity, which leads to the increase of oil carrying water capacity. With the increase of slope angle, the two-phase flow pattern gradually transits from wavy stratified flow to dispersed flow. The model established in this paper provides a new method for the study of oil carrying water in product oil pipeline.