Experimental investigation on two-phase flow induced vibration responses in a horizontal tee-pipe

Experiments are carried out to investigate the flow-induced vibration responses in a horizontal tee pipe under the excitation of gas-liquid two-phase flow. The influence of the superficial gas velocity on the pressure fluctuations and the vibration responses of the tee-pipe is investigated. The results show that the phase separation phenomenon of tee-pipe is mainly related to the fluid inertia of two-phase flow, and the phase distribution of radial and axial branches tends to be uniform with the increase of the superficial gas velocity. The frequency range of the pressure fluctuation caused by slug flow is concentrated between 0 to 15 Hz, and the pressure amplitude increases with the increase of the superficial gas velocity. The slug flow mainly causes the vertical vibration and the vibration amplitude increases with the increase of the superficial gas velocity. The vibration responses of the tee-pipe are related to the alternate movement of the gas slug and the liquid slug. The two-phase flow mainly excites the operating modes of the pipe, and the first-order vibration mode is the main mode. The vibration amplitude of the main pipe is the largest, and that of the horizontal radial direction line is the smallest, due to the fact that the average momentum of the two-phase flow in the main pipe is higher than that in the branch pipe. The flow separation leads to the proportion of liquid phase in the axial branch pipe increases, and the flow rate of the two-phase flow decreases, which induce fluid impact phenomenon. The amplitude of vibration response of the axial branch pipe is significantly higher than that of the radial branch pipe.