Numerical modelling of horizontal oil-water pipe flow

The purpose of this work is the validation of ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS CFX with the Algebraic Interfacial Area Density (AIAD) model for a horizontal oil-water flow. Software and hardware developments in the last years have significantly increased and improved the accuracy, flexibility and performance of simulations. At HZDR, the Euler-Euler approach for multiphase flow modeling with free surfaces is used. Therefore, the AIAD (Algebraic Interfacial Area Density) model was developed at HZDR in close cooperation with ANSYS. In this work the applicability of the AIAD model for an oil-water flow is investigated. The validation of various multiphase flow models in ANSYS Fluent and the AIAD model in ANSYS CFX for the oil-water flow was performed by calculations with different oil and water inlet velocities and various boundary conditions. Thereafter, the achieved results of the appropriate models for the modeling of the oil-water flow in the two solvers were used with existing experimental results for validation. The results of the simulations show, that horizontal oil-water flow can be modelled with rather good accuracy.