IFE

The Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) was established in 1953 and is dedicated to the advancement of energy-related research and development. With a mandate to conduct "research for a better future", IFE's activities cover a wide range of disciplines, particularly focusing on environmental and health impacts of energy production, storage and use.

IFE's Well Flow Loop (WFL) laboratory is designed to study multiphase pipe flow with inclinations ranging from horizontal to vertical, and either upward and downward flow. The system includes a test section, return section, gas-liquid and oil-water separators, pumps, and compressors. With a very extensive and advanced setup of instruments including flow meters, pressure gauges, high-speed video, gamma densitometers, and multiple X-ray CT systems the lab can run experiments relevant to industrial well and transport pipeline conditions. The test section is made of transparent PVC, which facilitates direct visual inspection as well as photographic analysis, supplementing the X-ray and gamma-based methods. Since its launch in 1994, the loop has produced valuable results for oil and gas-condensate studies and flow-induced corrosion, with frequent upgrades of instrumentation and data processing tools.

The Well Flow Loop (WFL) is a medium-pipe-size multiphase flow laboratory which is part of the Norwegian National Infrastructure for Multiphase Flow. Data from the WFL have been crucial for the development of the word-leading pipe flow simulator OLGA, and an integral part of the development of subsea technology.

The WFL is housed indoors with a total test section length of 44 m, giving a length-to-diameter ratio of 440 (150 for steeply inclined or vertical flow). Sulphurhexafluoride (SF₆) is used as the gas phase to replicate high-density field conditions encountered in the field. A combination of advanced measurement techniques enable precise flow characterization by means of hold-up, pressure drop, flow structures, and flow regime identification.

The broad-beam gamma densitometer was developed at IFE in the 1980s. It irradiates the entire pipe cross-section, giving accurate measurements of the cross-sectional average holdup for each phase, at a typical sampling rate of 50 Hz. The system operates by emitting gamma rays from a source on one side of the pipe to a detector on the other, with the radiation attenuated by the pipe wall and its contents (water, oil, and gas). An algorithm calculates the phase fractions from the photon counts.

IFE's Well Flow Loop and FALCON CO2 loop labs are equipped with more than a dozen different X-ray cameras, including three different CT systems. With the help of calibration images, each camera yields a projected concentration profile for each fluid phase. Using the projections as input, tomographic techniques can be used to reconstruct the fluid distribution in the entire pipe cross section, as a function of time.

	Well Flow Loop
Possible investigation areas	Three-phase flows
Max operating pressure [bara]	10
Min operating pressure [bara]	1
Typical temperature range [deg C]	Room temperature
Inner diameter [mm]	99
Test section length [m]	15 to 44
Inclinations [deg]	-90 to +90
Superficial gas velocity [m/s]	0-14
Superficial liquid velocity [m/s]	0-2
Superficial liquid velocity [m/s]	0-2
Water	Fresh water
Oil	Exxsol D60, Exxsol D80
Gas	Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)

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