HYPERBOLICITY ANALYSIS OF A ONE-DIMENSIONAL TWO-FLUID TWO-PHASE FLOW MODEL FOR STRATIFIED-FLOW PATTERN

Two-phase flows in pipelines occur in a variety of processes in the nuclear, petroleum and gas industries. Because of the practical importance of accurately predicting steady and unsteady flows along the line, one-dimensional two-fluid flow models have been extensively employed in numerical simulations. These models are usually written as a system of non-linear hyperbolic partial-differential equations, but some of the available formulations are physically inconsistent due to a loss of the hyperbolicity property. In these cases, the associated eigenvalues become complex numbers and the model loses physical meaning locally. This paper presents a numerical study of a one-dimensional single-pressure four-equation two-fluid model for an isothermal stratified flow that occurs in a horizontal pipeline. The diameter, pressure and volume fraction are kept constant, whereas the liquid and gas velocities are varied to cover the entire range of superficial velocities in the stratified region. For each point, the eigenvalues are numerically computed to verify whether they are real numbers and to assess their signs. The results show that hyperbolicity is lost near the boundaries of the stratified pattern and in a vast area of the region itself. Moreover, the eigenvalue signs alternate, which has implications on the prescription of numerical boundary conditions.