Predicting Two-Phase Pressure Drops in Vertical Pipe

Abstract

A method is presented which can accurately predict, with a precisionof about 10 percent, two-phase pressure drops in flowing and gas-liftproduction wells over a wide range of well conditions. The methodis an extension of the work done by Griffith and Wallis and was foundto be superior to five other published methods. The precision ofthe method was verified when its predicted values were compared against148 measured pressure drops. The unique features of this method overmost others are that liquid holdup is derived from observed physicalphenomena, the pressure gradient is related tot eh geometrical distributionof the liquid and gas phase (flow regimes), and the method providesa good analogy of what happens inside the pipe. It takes less thana second to obtain a prediction on the IBM 7044 computer.