Slug liquid holdup is one of the most important parameters of slug flow. It is closely related to the average liquid holdup andpressure gradient of slug flow in wells and pipelines. Barnea and Brauner (1985) and Zhang et al. (2003a) mechanistic modelsare based on the turbulent nature of liquid slugs, which is typical for low viscosity oils. However, for high viscosity oil slugflow, the liquid slug is laminar due to low slug Reynolds number. In this study, a slug liquid holdup mechanistic model isdeveloped for low and high viscosity oil slug flows. The model is based on two shear mixings including shear between theslug front and pipe wall, and shear between the slug body and liquid film. The equations are solved based on slug flowcharacteristics which can be calculated by solving the continuity and momentum equations of slug flow. A data bankconsisting of 418 slug liquid holdup measurements is used to validate the model. In the data bank, liquid viscosity ranges from0.0016 to 0.589 Pa·s (1.6 to 589 Cp). Pipe inclination angle is from -30? to upward vertical. Pipe inner diameter (ID) variesfrom 5.08 to 10 cm. Statistical evaluations are also conducted against predictions of other models. Significant improvement isobserved in the performance of the new model.
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