Experimental Investigation on Propagation Characteristics of Pulse Pressure Wave in a Long Pipeline

In offshore oil and gas pipelines, there are many transient behaviors that can cause local pressure waves. The propagation of large amplitude pressure waves will cause large fluctuations in wellhead pressure, which seriously threatens the stable operation of downstream treatment facilities. In this paper, the propagation characteristics of pulse pressure wave in slug flow are obtained by using high-frequency pressure signals in a 46 mm ID, 1657 m long pipeline. It is found that the propagation of pulse pressure waves follows power-law attenuation and presents nonlinear and dispersive characteristics along the length of the pipeline. The compressibility of the gas phase seriously hinders the propagation of pulse pressure waves. With the increase of superficial gas velocity, the propagation velocity decreases and the attenuation coefficient increases. The overall average propagation velocity and attenuation coefficient of the pulse pressure wave in the horizontal slug flow is 45∼351 m/s and 0.921∼2.137 × 10−3 dB/m, respectively. The prediction correlations of pulse pressure wave propagation velocity and attenuation coefficient in slug flow are established based on the pulse pressure wave data in long pipeline. © 2024 Science Press. All rights reserved.