Comparison between Empirical Correlation and Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation for the Pressure Gradient of Multiphase Flow

The objective of this research is to compare the use of empirical correlation with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation in determining the pressure gradient in two-phase flow pipelines at the same inlet condition. In this work, the empirical model of Beggs and Brill model had been used whereas the turbulent model applied in the CFD simulation was the Renormalization Group (RNG) k-ε model. A statistical analysis was conducted to determine the deviation in the values obtained by the CFD simulation as compared to those from the empirical correlation. It was found that the CFD results were in a good agreement with the findings obtained from the empirical correlation with a deviation of less than ±5%. Index Terms empirical correlation, Computational Fluid Dynamics, pressure gradients, two-phase flow