Chinese J. Chem. Eng.

, 14(5) 626—633 (2006)

Development of Liquid Slug Length in Gas-Liquid Slug Flow along

Horizontal Pipeline: Experiment and Simulation*

WANG Xin(王鑫), GUO Liejin(郭烈锦)** and ZHANG Ximin(张西民)

State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

Abstract The liquid slug length distribution is crucial for designing the downstream processing system with mul-
tiphase pipeline. Experiments were conducted in a 133m long horizontal test loop. The measurements were per-
formed by conductivity probes to determine the liquid slug length distribution. The data covered both the slug and
plug flow regimes. From experimental results, the mean liquid slug lengths were relatively insensitive to gas and
liquid flow rates in the higher mixture velocity range. But in the lower mixture velocity range, the mean liquid slug
length decreased and then increased with mixture velocity. It shows that the development length of slug flow was
longer than x/D=1157. A slug tracking model was adapted to study the evolution of liquid slug length distribution in
a horizontal pipeline. In the present model, the wake effect of elongated bubble and the pressure drop due to accel-
eration are taken into account and random slug lengths are introduced at the entrance. The results of the model are
compared with the measured slug length distributions of slug flow regime. It shows that the predicted mean and
maximum slug lengths are in agreement with the experimental data at x/D=1157 and the form of the slug length
distributions is also predicted well by the model.
Keywords two-phase flow, slug flow, liquid slug length, slug tracking

1 INTRODUCTION tional velocity of elongated bubble, while the transla-

In petroleum industry, the slug flow is a fre-
quently encountered flow regime in multiphase flow
pipeline. For pipeline designers, the liquid slug length
distribution is important for the proper design of
downstream facilities, such as slug catcher and sepa-
ration system. However, for its transient and unsteady
nature, it is a great challenge for engineers to correctly
predict the flow parameters of slug flow, especially
the maximum liquid slug length.
The unit cell model for slug flow in horizontal
pipe was first proposed by Dukler and Hubbard[1].
Based on this approach, some researchers developed
modified models to predict flow parameters of slug
flow. But all the models assumed the constancy of
liquid slug length and could not predict the liquid slug
length distribution.
From observation, short liquid slugs generated in
the entrance section of horizontal pipe may be several
times the pipe diameter and the frequency of liquid
slugs is relatively high. When the short slugs move
downstream, some elongated bubbles disappear and
short slugs merge to form longer liquid slugs. In this
course the frequency of liquid slug decreases and
reaches a stable value when most liquid slugs are
longer than the minimum stable slug length. The sur-
vival of liquid slug is controlled by the pick-up proc-
ess at the slug front, where the moving slug front
scoops the liquid film in elongated bubble region, and
by the liquid shedding process at the tail of liquid slug.
The liquid shedding rate is determined by the transla-
tional velocity is related to the maximum local veloc-
ity of the slug tail. At the back of short liquid slug, the
velocity profile is not developed as fully as the longer
one, therefore short slugs are unstable and easily
overtaken by the following elongated bubble. When a
short slug collapsed, the trailing liquid slug scoops the
liquid and its length increases. Moissis and Griffith[2]
studied the collapsing rate of liquid slugs due to wake
effect in upward vertical flow. Cook and Behnia[3]
studied this effect in nearly horizontal pipe.
From Prudhoe Bay pipeline data, Brill et al.[4]
observed that the liquid slug length could be fitted by
a log-normal distribution and Nydal et al.[5] obtained
the same conclusion from experimental data. Zheng et
al.[6] proposed a primary slug tracking model to study
the slug flow behavior in hilly terrain pipeline. Barnea
and Taitel[7] also used a simple slug tracking model to
calculate liquid slug length evolution along a vertical
pipe. In this model the liquid film in Taylor bubble
region and the dispersed bubble in liquid slug were
neglected and an assumed relation of the translational
velocity was specified to consider the wake effect.
Cook and Behnia[3] compared this model with ex-
perimental slug length distribution for nearly horizon-
tal pipe. van Hout et al.[8] used this model to study
liquid slug length distribution in vertical flow.
Nydal and Banerjee[9] developed a Lagrangian
slug tracking model, which was based on the balances
of mass and momentum. The important assumption
was that no gas was entrained into the liquid slug.

Received 2005-09-12, accepted 2006-04-14.

* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.50536020 and 50323001).
** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lj-guo@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
 Development of Liquid Slug Length in Gas-Liquid Slug Flow along Horizontal Pipeline: Experiment and Simulation 627

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the experimental facility

P1, P2, P3—pressure transducers; CP1, CP2, CP3, CP4—conductivity probes;
1—centrifugal pump; 2—gear pump; 3—screw compressor; 4—electromagnetic flowmeters;
5—mass flowmeters; 6—vortex flowmeter; 7—orifice plate flowmeters

Predicted results of the model were compared with the
measured data of slug flow in hilly terrain pipeline.
Based on the unit cell model presented by Dukler and
Hubbard[1], Taitel and Barnea[10,11] proposed a slug
tracking model to study the slug flow in hilly terrain
pipeline. Al-safran et al.[12] verified the slug tracking
model with two-phase flow experimental data ac-
quired in a 420 m long hilly terrain flow loop and the
agreement between the measured slug length distribu-
tion along pipeline and the predicted data was good,
although only two cases were provided. However, the
model[10,11] only took into account the terrain slugs
and neglected the wake effect of hydrodynamic slugs.
Slugs could dissipate at top elbows or be generated at
bottom elbows due to the gravity force. In addition,
the pressure drop due to acceleration was not included
in this model[10,11]. Also the lengths of the liquid slug
and the elongated bubble that enter the pipe were
specified and a constant stable slug length 50D or
150D was used in the model.
In this work, the measurement of liquid slug
length conducted in a 133m long horizontal and
φ 50mm test loop was presented, over a wide range of
input gas and liquid velocities. The slug tracking
model[10,11] was adapted to take into account the hy-
drodynamic slugs that assumed a stochastic normal
distribution of liquid slug lengths at the pipe entrance.
Also, the wake effect and the acceleration pressure drop
were included. The liquid slug lengths predicted by the
model were then verified with the measured data.
2 EXPERIMENTAL
An experimental facility was designed and con-
structed in this study to determine liquid slug length
distributions. The parameter values investigated corre-
－1
and VGSO=1－20m⋅s 1.
－
sponded to VLS=0.16－1.5m⋅s
2.1 Experimental facility
Figure 1 illustrates the experimental facility. Wa-
ter was pumped and measured by an electromagnetic
flowmeter with precision of 0.5%. Oil was supplied
by a gear pump from an oil tank and then measured by
a CMF050 or CMF200 micro motion mass flowmeter
with precision of 0.1%. Air was compressed by the
screw compressor into a buffer vessel. Then it was
filtered and measured by an orifice plate or a digital
vortex flowmeter (accuracy 1%) before entering the
mixer. A horizontal plate was fixed in the mixer pipe
to get stratified flow regime at the initial part of the
test section, as shown in Fig.1.
The experimental facility consisted of a 133m
long horizontal test section and finally a 16m vertical
pipe. Most segments of the test loop were made of
stainless steel pipe, but several segments of the
straight pipe sections were made of PVC pipe and
were transparent for visual observation. The inner
diameter of the test loop was 50mm. At the end of the
vertical pipe, the gas-liquid mixture was separated in a
separator which was operated under atmospheric con-
dition. The air was vented to atmosphere and the liq-
uid was returned to the liquid-liquid separator tank,
from which oil and water flowed back to their storage
tanks separately.
Air and water were used as the test fluids in this
study. The flow regime was slug flow or plug flow in
the horizontal pipeline. Measurement instruments in-
cluding Keller pressure and differential pressure
transducers (accuracy 0.1%) were installed along the
test loop. The liquid slug and elongated bubble inter-
faces were measured by conductivity probes[13]. The

Chinese J. Ch. E. 14(5) 626 (2006)

628 Chinese J. Ch. E. (Vol. 14, No.5)
hardware of the data acquisition system consisted of a
PC and a high speed multifunction board PCI-6071E
made by National Instruments Inc. USA. The data
acquisition and analyzing program was developed in
the graphical programming system of LabVIEW6.0.
All the concerned signals were sampled at 2000 Hz.
2.2 Measurement techniques and data processing
The measurement of electrical impedance in
two-phase flow is a very common method to deter-
mine the local or area average void fraction in multi-
phase flow research. In this study the technique was
used to study the elongated bubbles in slug flow. A
single sensor conductivity probe is shown schemati-
cally in Fig.2. The needle is electrically isolated by a
thin layer of lacquer but the tiny tip is exposed. It is
assembled into a thin stainless steel tube and the tube
is sealed at both ends. The circuitry is designed that a
high voltage signal is output when the tip is in gas
phase and a low voltage signal occurs when the tip
contacts liquid phase. Therefore, the sharp voltage
transitions indicate the interfaces between gas and
liquid. The tips of the probes were close to the upper
wall of the pipe and the distance was 5mm. Two pairs
of conductivity probes mounted in the PVC pipe sec-
tions were used to detect the gas-liquid interfaces. The
first pair(CP1 and CP2 in Fig.1) was located at
x/D=1157 after the entrance and the second pair(CP3
and CP4) was located at x/D=2609. The longitudinal
spacing of two probes is L=0.50m. The signals of the
probes are shown in Fig.3. By cross-correlation of the
signals, the transit time Δt is determined and the
translational velocity of the elongated bubble can be
obtained by Vt=L/Δt. Then the elongated bubble length
and the liquid slug length can be calculated. Several
hundreds of slug units were recorded and processed
for each set of test conditions and the mean values and
the statistical distributions of each hydrodynamic pa-
rameter were obtained.
The accuracy in determining the translational
velocity of elongated bubble depends on the accuracy
in the estimation of the transit time Δt for a bubble
1.2mm
1.2mm
0.4mm
0.4mm
5mm
5mm
Figure 2 Conductivity probe assembly
October, 2006
Figure 3 Normalized output signals of two successive
conductivity probes (VLS=0.72m⋅s－1, VGSO=10.5m⋅s－1)
passing the adjacent probes, as reported by Fagundes
et al.[14]. The uncertainty of Δt is equal to the sampling
period, i.e. 1/2000s. For all experimental conditions,
the maximum of the relative uncertainty of the elon-
gated bubble velocity is 2.8%, which is smaller than
the maximum error 5% permitted in the calculated
velocity, proposed by Pinto and Campos[15]. The rela-
tive uncertainty of the liquid slug length is always
smaller than 3.3%.
3 MODEL
A typical slug unit consists of a liquid slug region
of length LS and elongated bubble region of length Lf,
under the gas bubble there is a liquid film. The main
assumption of the unit cell model[1] is that slug flow is
comprised of a series of slug units in which every liq-
uid slug has constant length. However, in the slug
tracking model[10,11] every liquid slug has its individ-
ual length and the velocities of liquid slug front and
tail are calculated respectively. Therefore, the lengths
of all liquid slugs in the pipeline can be determined.
Some liquid slugs may collapse when their lengths are
shorter than a critical length. To simplify the calcula-
tion a uniform liquid film thickness is used and it
equals the equilibrium one.
As shown in Fig.4, the position of slug front is Zfr
and the slug tail is Zta; the front and tail have velocity
Ufr and Uta respectively. These parameters are calcu-
lated, as well as the fluid velocities, pressures and
holdups in every liquid slug and elongated bubble re-
gion. Because a constant stable slug at the entrance
was assumed in the model of Taitel and Barnea[10,11]
and the wake effect was also not included, the model
would not predict the evolution of the slug length dis-
tribution along a horizontal pipe due to no collapsing
of short liquid slugs. In this study, a stochastic normal
 Development of Liquid Slug Length in Gas-Liquid Slug Flow along Horizontal Pipeline: Experiment and Simulation 629

Figure 4 Sketch of slug flow units in horizontal pipe[10]

distribution of input liquid slug lengths is employed slug:

and the input slug units at the entrance are generated
by a steady state unit cell model. The wake effect is
included and short liquid slugs may collapse and the
coalescence of elongated bubbles occurs. Due to the
underprediction of pressure drop at high flow rates
when the acceleration pressure drop is ne-
glected(He[16]), it is considered in this study.
3.1 The translational velocity of elongated bubble
and the wake effect
The correlation proposed by Nicklin et al.[17] is
applied to calculated the translational velocity of elon-
gated bubble:
Vt = C0Vm + V0 (1)
where V0 is the drift velocity of elongated bubble in
stagnant liquid, and Vm is the mixture velocity
(Vm=VLS+VGS). The coefficient of C0 and the drift ve-
locity V0 is predicted by the correlation reported by
Bendiksen[18]:
C0 = 1.05 + 0.15sin 2 ϕ
Vm2
V0 = gD ( 0.35sin ϕ + 0.54 cos ϕ ) for Fr 2 ≡ ≤ 3.52
gD
C0 = 1.2
Vm2
V0 = gD ( 0.35sin ϕ ) for Fr 2 ≡ > 3.52 (2)
gD
With the wake effect of a leading bubble, a short
trailing liquid slug is not stable, so that the elongated
bubble following it will accelerate. Cook and Behnia[3]
studied the relation between the translational velocity of
elongated bubble to the liquid slug length ahead of it in
a 16m tube inclined at +5° to the horizontal. They found
that the wake effect can be correlated by the equation:
Vtb ⎛ L ⎞
= 1.0 + 0.56exp ⎜ −0.46 S ⎟ (3)
Vt ∞ ⎝ D⎠
where Vt∞ is the elongated bubble translational velocity
behind a long developed liquid slug and calculated by
Eq.(1). This correlation is used in this study.
3.2 Liquid holdup in the liquid slug region
In this work the correlation proposed by An-
dreussi and Bendiksen[19], which is based on a physi-
cal model for the entrainment and transport processes
for the dispersed bubbles in the liquid slug region, is
used to calculate the liquid holdup within the liquid
Fr − F0
RS = 1 − (4)
Fr + F1
with
Fr = U S gD
F0 = 2.6 ⎡⎣1 − 2 ( D0 D ) ⎤⎦ , D0 = 2.5cm
2
⎛ 1 ⎞
F1 = 2400 ⎜1 − sin ϕ ⎟ B0−3 / 4
⎝ 3 ⎠
B0 = ( ρ L − ρG ) gD 2 / σ
3.3 Pressure drop calculation
There are three contributions to the pressure drop
in slug flow: the frictional and the gravitational pressure
drop and the acceleration pressure drop. Dukler and
Hubbard[1] and Nicholson et al.[20] proposed that the
acceleration pressure drop results from the acceleration
of the slow moving liquid film to the slug velocity:
ΔPacc = ρ L RS (U S − U f )(Vt − U S ) (5)
The study of He [16]
showed that the pressure
would be underpredicted if the acceleration pressure
drop was neglected at high mixture velocities. How-
ever, the pressure would be overpredicted when the
acceleration pressure drop was included. From ex-
perimental observation, when the input mixture ve-
locities was low, it was found that only partial of liq-
uid film would be accelerated to the slug velocity and
the slug may move on a thin layer of liquid film which
had slow velocity. Therefore, a coefficient Cacc is used
to consider the proportion of the liquid film scooped
by the mixing vortex in the liquid slug. Bendiksen et
al.[21] observed that the mixing zone at the slug front is
short when the mixture velocity is lower, but in the
higher mixture velocity range the mixing zone is
longer and maybe equal to half of liquid slug length.
For simplification, we assume that the acceleration
pressure drop only exists in the front half of liquid
slug. Due to the force balance between points i and
i+1, the pressure difference is given by
1 S
PS,i+1 − PS,i = f S,i ρ S,i LS,i U S,i U S,i +
4 A
1 1 S
ρ S,i gLS,i sin ϕ + f S,i+1 ρ S,i+1 LS,i+1
2 4 A
1
U S,i+1 U S,i+1 + ρ S,i+1 gLS,i+1 sin ϕ +
2
Chinese J. Ch. E. 14(5) 626 (2006)
630 Chinese J. Ch. E. (Vol. 14, No.5)

⎛ τ f Sf τ G SG ⎞ was found that the collapse of liquid slugs occurred

⎜ A + A + ρf g sin ϕ ⎟ Lf ,i + and the flow was still developing after x/D=1157. The
⎝ ⎠f ,i
minimum stable slug length was longer than 10D that
Cacc ΔPacc,i+1 (6) suggested by Cook and Behnia[3].
where ρf is defined as
ρf = Rf ρ L + (1 − Rf ) ρG (7)
A more detailed description of the other equa-
tions to calculate the parameters, such as the slug front
velocity Ufr, the slug velocity US, the liquid film ve-
locity Uf and holdup Rf , is found in Taitel and Ba-
rnea[10,11] .
The model was implemented in C++ using ob-
ject-oriented techniques. Dynamic memory allocation
and linked lists were used. In the calculation, the input
air and water flow rates and the pressure at the outlet
were specified. From calculation it was found that the
mean slug length and the standard deviation of the
predicted length distributions were insensitivity to the
chosen form and range of input slug lengths. In this
study the slug lengths introduced into the pipe were
random between 3D and 5D and followed a normal
distribution. The code was run and the Cacc was tuned
until the averaged inlet pressure (P1 in Fig.1) was
correctly predicted. It was found that Cacc varied from
0 to 0.3. Then the development of liquid slug length
along the pipeline of a long time was simulated and
the data of thousands of slugs were collected.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Some researchers reported that slug lengths were
quite constant for a large range of mixture velocities
for air-water flow in short horizontal pipes. Dukler
and Hubbard[1] observed Ls=12－24D. Nicholson et
al.[20] reported Ls=12－30D. Andreussi and Bendik-
sen[19] obtained Ls=12－24D. The result of Nydal et
al.[5] was Ls=15－20D and He[16] was Ls=10－34D.
Fig.5 shows the mean liquid slug lengths measured at
x/D=1157 and x/D=2609. It is found that the mean
slug lengths from both locations are almost independ-
ent on the mixture velocities only in the higher mix-
ture velocity range, but in the range of lower mixture
velocity, the slug lengths are smaller than the values at
higher mixture velocities and the slug length decreases
and then increases as the mixture velocity increases.
This characteristic is considered to be due to the tran-
sition of flow regime from slug flow to plug flow,
which was observed that the small bubbles in the liq-
uid slug region disappeared in the lower mixture ve-
locity range from the signal of conductivity probes.
From both figures, it is observed that the mean liquid
slugs grew from 15D－27D at x/D=1157 to 23D－
40D at x/D=2609 in the higher flow rates range. The
slug length measured at x/D=1157 varied in the same
range as the other authors reported, but the range at
x/D=2609 was higher. From the minimum slug lengths
and the slug frequencies measured at both locations, it
Figure 5 Measured mean liquid slug length vs. mixture
velocity at two locations (The error bar represents the standard
deviation from the mean value)
Ferre[22] observed that the mean liquid slug
length increases in the range of 0.5＜VGSO＜4m⋅s 1 in
－
[23]
a 4.5cm pipe that was 50m in length. Woods re-
ported that the mean liquid slug length increases
slightly in the range of 1.0＜VGSO＜3.0m⋅s 1 in a pipe
－
with a diameter of 7.63cm and a length 19.8m. The
trend was also observed in this study. Fig.6 shows the
mean liquid slug lengths measured at x/D=1157 as a
function of VGSO for four constant liquid superficial
velocities. While VGSO is higher than 6m⋅s 1, the mean
－
liquid slug length is weakly dependent on VGSO and
VLS. However in the range of 2.2＜VGSO＜6 m⋅s 1, the
－
mean liquid slug length increases with the increasing
of VGSO and decreases with the increasing of VLS. In
the range of VGSO＜2.2m⋅s 1, the mean liquid slug
－
length increases with the decreasing of VGSO and the
translational velocities of elongated bubble corre-
sponding to the minimum of mean liquid slug length
are 1.9, 2.6, 2.5m⋅s 1 for VLS=0.7, 1.0, 1.49m⋅s 1 re-
－ －
[24]
spectively. Grotjahn and Mewes reported that the
transition between plug and slug flow occurs for
Vt =2.2m⋅s- 1 and longer liquid slugs appear in the
－
plug flow region. It is shown that the transition Vt in

October, 2006
 Development of Liquid Slug Length in Gas-Liquid Slug Flow along Horizontal Pipeline: Experiment and Simulation 631

average value of the calculated maximum slug lengths

is 48.3D and its variance is 14.3. The average of the
calculated maximum slug length is about 0.7% shorter
than the measured length. The average absolute error
is 9.2% and the maximum absolute error is 20.5%.
Note that the distance of the location from the en-
trance, the agreements between the predicted and the
measured mean and maximum liquid slug lengths are
good.

Figure 6 Mean liquid slug length at x/D=1157 vs. gas

superficial velocity for various liquid superficial velocities
VLS, m·s 1: △ 0.50; ▼ 0.70; ☆ 1.00; ○ 1.49
－

this research are close to the value suggested by the

authors[24] and the reverse trend of the mean liquid slug
length against VGSO in the range of VGSO＜2.2m⋅s 1 is
－

due to the flow regime transition.

The experimental data of slug flow regime were
simulated by the slug tracking model. Fig.7 shows the Figure 8 Comparison of measured and calculated
mean liquid slug length at x/D=1157
predicted mean liquid slug lengths at x/D=1157 for a measured; calculated
wide range of mixture velocities. As the measured
data [Fig.5(a)], the predicted mean slug lengths are
insensitivity to the mixture velocities and fairly con-
stant. Fig.8 compares the mean liquid slug lengths
predicted by the model with the measured data of 21
combinations of liquid and gas flow rates at x/D=1157.
For each experimental condition, the left unfilled
column represents the measured mean liquid slug
length and the right filled column represents the pre-
dicted value. The average value of the measured mean
liquid slug lengths is 23.4D and the variance is 2.8.
While the average value of the calculated mean liquid
slug lengths is 22.5D and the variance is 2.5. The av- Figure 9 Comparison of measured and calculated
erage of the calculated mean slug length is about 3.9% maximum liquid slug length at x/D=1157
shorter than the measured length. The average abso- measured; calculated
lute error is 5.2% and the maximum absolute error is
14.7%. The predicted and the measured maximum
The typical distributions of measured and pre-
liquid slug lengths at x/D=1157 are shown in Fig.9.
dicted liquid slug length at x/D=1157 and x/D=2609
The average value of the measured maximum slug
are presented in Fig.10 and 11. Although in the calcu-
lengths is 49.1D and the variance is 31.8. While the
lation, the normal distribution of input liquid slug
length (3D—5D) was employed at the entrance, the
statistical distributions of measured and calculated
slug length at both locations maintain right skewed
and the shapes can be fitted by a lognormal curve,
which agrees with the reports of Brill et al.[4] and Ny-
dal et al.[5]. The model predicts the standard deviations
of distribution at both locations and the mean slug
length at x/D=1157 quite well. But the mean liquid
slug length at x/D=2609 is underestimated. In the
model, the minimum stable slug length was 10D be-
cause the correlation [Eq.(3)] was used to relate the
Figure 7 Calculated mean liquid slug length of slug flow wake effect of elongated bubble. However, this corre-
regime vs. mixture velocity at x/D=1157 (The error bar lation was proposed by Cook and Behnia[3] from the
represents the standard deviation from the mean value) experiments conducted in a short inclined pipe and the
Chinese J. Ch. E. 14(5) 626 (2006)
632 Chinese J. Ch. E. (Vol. 14, No.5)
Figure 10 Distributions of measured liquid slug
length at two locations (VLS=1m⋅s 1, VGSO=5.8m⋅s 1)
－ －
Figure 11 Distributions of calculated liquid slug
length at two locations (VLS=1m⋅s－1, VGSO=5.8m⋅s－1)
maximum mixture velocity was only 2.5m⋅s 1, which
－
were different from the conditions in this study. From
the experimental results, it was found that the mean
October, 2006
slug lengths increased clearly after x/D=1157 and a
minimum stable slug length longer than 10D was ex-
isted. Therefore the short minimum stable slug length
assumed in the model is an important reason to un-
derpredict liquid slug length at x/D=2609.
Figure 12 presents the variation of the lengths of
9 consecutive liquid slugs along the pipeline from the
model output. The initial slug lengths were random
between 3D to 5D. When a slug length was shorter
than the critical length, 1D specified in this study, the
liquid slug dissipated. While all the liquid slugs were
initially shorter than the minimum stable length of
10D assumed in the model, some slugs disappeared
and the other grew to stable length and survived in the
pipeline. For instance, the collapse of the second slug
caused the following slug, the third, to grow to 8.7D
as it accumulated the liquid from the second slug,
however, its length was less than 10D and finally dis-
appeared. The fourth slug also collapsed. The liquid of
the second, the third and the fourth slug were collected
by the fifth slug and then its length increased to 18.5D
that was longer than 10D and stable. Thereafter, be-
cause there were no slugs ahead of it collapsing again,
its length only increased 2.5D when it moved along
the pipeline. It is seen that the minimum stable slug
length is a key factor in the slug tracking model to
simulate the hydrodynamic slug flow.
Figure 12 Development of a sequence of liquid slugs
(VLS=1m⋅s－1, VGSO=10.2m⋅s－1)
5 CONCLUSIONS
A slug tracking model, based on the work of
Taitel and Barnea[10,11], was adapted for the hydrody-
namic slug flow in horizontal pipeline, that included
the wake effect and the pressure drop due to accelera-
tion and assumed a random slug length distribution
introduced at the entrance. The model was imple-
mented in C++ using object-oriented techniques and
the evolution of the slug length distribution along the
pipeline was simulated.
Experimental study of gas-liquid slug flow was
carried out in a 133m long horizontal test loop and the
measurements were performed by conductivity probes.
The liquid slug length and the other parameters were
determined from two locations positioned at the
 Development of Liquid Slug Length in Gas-Liquid Slug Flow along Horizontal Pipeline: Experiment and Simulation 633

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Chinese J. Ch. E. 14(5) 626 (2006)