The study of the hydrodynamic stability of flow patterns is important in the design of equipment and pipelines for multiphase flows. The maintenance of a particular flow pattern becomes important in many applications, e.g., stratified flow pattern in heavy oil production avoiding the formation of...

The study of the hydrodynamic stability of flow patterns is important in the design of equipment and pipelines for multiphase flows. The maintenance of a particular flow pattern becomes important in many applications, e.g., stratified flow pattern in heavy oil production avoiding the formation of emulsions because of the separation of phases and annular flow pattern in heat exchangers which increases the heat transfer coefficient. Flow maps are drawn to orientate engineers which flow pattern is present in a pipeline, for example. The ways how these flow maps are drawn have changed from totally experimental work, to phenomenological models, and then to stability analysis theories. In this work an experimental liquid-liquid flow map, with water and viscous oil as work fluids, drawn via subjective approach with high speed camera was used to compare to approaches of the same theory: the interfacial-tension-force model. This theory was used to drawn the wavy stratified flow pattern transition boundary. This paper presents a comparison between the two approaches of the interfacial-tension-force model for transition boundaries of liquid-liquid flow patterns: (i) solving the wave equation for the wave speed and using average values for wave number and wave speed; and (ii) solving the same equation for the wave number and then using a correlation for the wave speed. The results show that the second approach presents better results

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