Effect of velocity and water cut on water distribution in elbows of petroleum pipelines

As one of the main energy sources, petroleum and natural gas are widely used around the world. Safety of the transportation causes more attentions recently. Currently, since some oil wells are in the late period of the production, water pre-injection is often used to rise the well pressure. Thus, the water cut is usually high in oil gathering pipelines. The inner wall of pipelines without coating would be corroded by contacting with the mixed corrosive medium and water during the long-term running, which may even lead to leakage accidents. Researches about flow pattern of oil-water multiphase flow pipes are mainly about straight pipelines, but few about elbows. In this work, water distributions in elbows of gathering pipelines were studied according to the experimental results and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation results. The water deposited when the fluid velocity was low enough and the water cut is high. According to the simulation results and experimental results, an oil-water phase inversion curve was obtained to be guidance for water distribution analysis in elbows.