Transient simulation of gas-condensate two-phase flow in pipes

Abstract An algorithm for transient gas-condensate two-phase flow in pipes is developed in this paper. It adopts a two-fluid model for hydraulic simulation and a single energy model for thermal simulation. For ease of calculation, a temperature-based energy equation is derived from the law of conservation of energy. In order to consider the influence of the phase transition, a new mass transfer model is developed in terms of total mass flow rate. Based on these models, a SIMPLE-like algorithm is proposed to simulate the transient gas-condensate two-phase flow. It consists of four steps: pressure and velocity correction, volume fraction solution, temperature calculation and property parameters update. Case study shows that the proposed algorithm could well simulate both low liquid mass fraction pipe and high liquid mass fraction pipe. In addition, the algorithm could provide a more consistent result for transient gas-condensate two-phase flow.