Theoretical modeling and experimental study of slug-annular gas-liquid flow splitting at a micro-T-junction

The present work studies the phase splitting characteristics of slug-annular water-nitrogen flow at a horizontal T-junction with diameter of 500 μm. The test results show that most of the data are located in gas rich zone, which reveals that gas tends to flow preferentially into the side arm. Increasing the liquid superficial velocity or decreasing the gas superficial velocity there will be more liquid through the run arm, and the degree of phase mal-distribution will become larger. Furthermore, an empirical model based on the experiment data is proposed to predict the phase distribution for micro-T-junctions. Comparisons the predictions with experimental data show good agreement, and the maximal error is 8.76%.