CFD SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENT ON GAS-LIQUID TWO-PHASE FLOW

Abstract

Metering bunker fuel accurately is important for custody transactions. Coriolis Mass flowmeters (CMFs) outperform other technologies for metering bunker fuel in terms of high accuracy and good repeatability. However, metering bunker fuel faces technical challenges due to high viscosity of bunker fuel and possible air bubble entrainments. This study aims to quantitatively investigate effects of high viscosity of fuel oil and air entrainments on performance of CMFs via experimental measurements and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. It is found that measurement errors for CMF increase as the GVF increases due to uneven distribution of gas bubbles in the water flow. Moreover the errors increase as the viscosity of the fluid increases due to occurrence of secondary flow and pressure surge in vicinity of sensors. Further studies are needed to determine corrections or compensations for these errors and to optimize the CMF’s shape design or its vibration patterns.