TY - JOUR
TI - Experimental study on gas-liquid-coal fines three-phase flow in undulating pipeline
AU - Wang Shuolong
AU - Wu Xiaodong
AU - Han Guoqing
AU - Zhong Ziyao
AU - Ren Zebin
AU - Meng Zhan
AU - Wang Hanlu
AU - Li Chen
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2019
VL - 23
IS - 2
SP - 683
EP - 694
PT - Article
AB - The aggregation of coal fines particles at the bottom of the coal-bed methane  well is a common occurrence during production, which could inhibit the flow  in the bottom of wells and have adverse effect on the downhole equipment. In  this work, gas-liquid-solid three-phase flow experiments were carried out to  investigate the migration and discharge of coal fines particles in  undulating pipeline. The experiments were conducted in down bent V-shaped  pipes with different inclination angles. Based on the conductivity method,  the real-time liquid holdup at three positions of the elbow was measured by  the developed software. The slugs were identified on the time series curves  of liquid holdup, and the characteristics of each slug were calculated, such  as length and translational velocity. Meanwhile, the moving of particles  with different size and concentration can be observed through visualized  flow channel. The dyed coal fines particles are injected into the multiphase  flow loop. By observing whether they can be discharged from the V-shaped  pipe, the lower limits of superficial gas and liquid velocities to avoid  particle retention at the elbow were determined. A correlation to predict  the critical gas and liquid velocity was presented, and the accuracy of the  calculation model was verified in comparison with the experimental results.