ESTIMATION OF VOLUMETRIC FRACTIONS OF EACH PHASE IN GAS-LIQUID-SOLID THREE-PHASE SLUG FLOW IN VERTICAL PIPES

A framework has been proposed to estimate the volumetric fractions of each phase in gas-liquid-solid three-phase flows in vertical pipes (Sakaguchi, 1987a; Sakaguchi, 1987b). The framework is applied to the gas-liquid-solid three-phase slug flow, and two main equations are solved with many correlations to estimate the volumetric fractions. The necessary correlations are mainly derived by the extension of those used in the gas-liquid two-phase slug flow to the three-phase slug flow and by the experimental results. The estimated values are compared with the experimental results of air-water-solid particles three-phase slug flow in vertical pipes and we conclude that this method is useful.