Computational Estimation of Bubble Gas Velocity for Slug Flow Pattern in Horizontal Pipes Using Image Processing Technique

Two-phase slug flow pattern is one of the most common flow patterns present in many industries, therefore its study becomes relevant. The aim of this work was to develop an automated computational program to determine the bubble gas velocity associated to gas-liquid two-phase slug flow by using video digital image processing technique. In order to obtain the images for the analysis, experiments were carried out using a pipe bench for air-water two-phase flow. The experimental facility is located in Simon Bolivar University, in Venezuela. The system has three pipes with different internal diameters and can be rotated around its axis and fixed at any inclination angle from horizontal to vertical flow. The tests were run in a horizontal pipeline of 0.03175m of internal pipe diameter and 8m long. For slug flow visualization a high speed camera Kodak Ektapro 4540mx imager was used. The camera was located in an x/D relation corresponding to 249 from the pipe inlet, ensuring the complete development of the flow. The camera allowed a maximum acquisition velocity of 4500 frames per second. The superficial velocity range was 0.16–1.79m/s and 0.16–1.26m/s for air and water, respectively. To summarize, 165 tests were performed and 1320000 images were analyzed with 20 flow rate combinations. The computational application was validated by comparing it with the velocities measured manually over selected images. Results obtained were compared to several correlations such as Bendiksen [1], Cook & Behnia [2] and Wang et al. [3].