Experimental Study of a Single Phase Flow in a Pipe Separator

Abstract

An experimental investigation of the hydrodynamic behaviour of a single water flow was performed on a laboratory scale model of a three phase pipe separator. The velocity distributions of swirling flow were measured using the Stereoscopic-Particle Image Velocimetry technique at three different axial positions within the pipe separator. The results show that the shapes of the tangential velocity profiles are independent of axial positions within the pipe separator and the magnitude of the mean tangential velocity decreases moving away from the inlet section to the outlets. The axial velocity measurements show the presence of fluid dynamic instabilities such as vortex breakdown and precessing vortex core caused by the high swirling motion inside the pipe separator