International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

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International Journal of Multiphase Flow

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmulflow

A new model predicting the propagation speed of pressure pulse in

multiphase fluid
Heng Li *
State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: It is vital to accurately predict the critical flow velocity in internal and external flow, which has extensive and
Critical flow velocity important applications in engineering, such as inside an aeroengine. In theory, the critical velocity is equal to the
Wave-speed model propagation speed of pressure pulse in fluid. In the past decades, many valuable studies were conducted to
Multiphase fluid
identify the critical flow velocity, including some classical experiments and simulations. However, these re­
Pressure pulse
CFD
searches mainly focus on the two-phase fluid such as gas and water. The existing models are also limited to the
two-phase flow. For the multiphase fluid, such as three-phase or even four-phase etc., the relevant research is
insufficient, causing the difficulty of predicting the critical flow velocity. This paper proposes a new wave-speed
model based on the homogeneous assumption of multiphase fluid. This simple model relates the critical flow
velocity or wave-speed with the average fluid density and equivalent bulk module of mixed-phase fluid. This new
model is suitable to the multiphase fluid, rather than just for the two-phase case. The predicted accuracy of the
proposed model is assessed using the available experimental data. Results show that the wave-speed given by the
present model agrees well with the exiting experimental data. Moreover, we also examine the proposed model
using the simulation data based on the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method. In the simulation, the
multiphase Navier-Stokes equations were solved and the propagation process of pressure pulse was monitored.
Results indicate that the present model can provide a satisfied predicted value of wave-speed in the multiphase
fluid. The present study fills the gap of wave-speed prediction in multiphase flow. It lays a foundation for the
assessment of critical velocity and can provide valuable guide for the engineering application.

1. Introduction
The multiphase flow widely exists in the nature (Morgado et al.,
2016; Shi et al., 2023). It also frequently appears in engineering such as
the multiphase flow inside a gas turbine, oil-gas pumping wells and son
on (Sitompul et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2022; Yin et al., 2023). The
propagation phenomena of pressure wave in the multiphase fluid are
remarkably different from the phenomena in the single fluid. A typical
example is that, the sound speed or wave-speed in gas-water two-phase
fluid can be lower than 50 m/s, which is far lower than the sonic speed in
single-phase gas (approximately 340 m/s) and pure water (about 1480
m/s). It is an interesting phenomenon and it really exists.
It is vital to obtain the pulse wave-speed. One important application
is that the critical flow velocity can be assessed by the pulse wave-speed.
Because the critical flow velocity is equal to the propagation speed of
pressure pulse referred to as wave-speed. Taking the gas as an example,
when the gas flows through the pipe or nozzle as an adiabatic flow,
under a certain upstream pressure, the flow rate increases with the
decrease of downstream pressure. However, when the flow velocity in­
side the pipe or nozzle throat reaches the propagation velocity of pres­
sure pulse under this condition, the flow velocity remains unchanged no
matter how the downstream pressure decreases again. This constant
velocity is called the critical velocity. Therefore, we can identify the
critical velocity by computing the pulse wave-speed, indicating that it is
of great significance for building a model to predict the pulse wave-
speed.
Another important application of pulse wave is in the industrial
equipment and measurement, which plays an important role for the safe
operation of industrial equipment. The pulse wave-speed is widely
applied to the industrial measurement (Esposito et al., 2020). For
example, for the gas-liquid two-phase flow, the gas content can be
measured in time by monitoring the mixed-phase wave-speed, which is
widely used in field of industrial measurement (Huang and Guo et al,
2004). In addition, the use of pressure wave is beneficial to drilling

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liheng@cumt.edu.cn.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2023.104464
Received 5 January 2023; Received in revised form 15 March 2023; Accepted 26 March 2023
Available online 28 March 2023
0301-9322/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

Fig 1. The concept model of multi-phase fluid containing gas, water, oil, and so on based the homogeneous assumption.

engineering in many aspects. The most representative application of gas-liquid two-phase flow considering the condensing process. Recently,
pulse pressure wave is the mud-pulse-telemetry, which uses coded some relevant research was reported including the high-precise simu­
pressure pulse to transmit the directional and geological information to lation method and experiment measurement, etc. (Fu et al., 2020;
the ground in real time through drilling fluid (Namuq et al., 2013; Li Esposito et al., 2020; Chan et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Kalikmanov and
et al., 2015). Besides, the pressure waves have other important appli­ Hagmeijer, 2022).
cations, such as accelerating transition from the laminar to turbulence, Although many wave-speed models have been reported, most of
gas influx detection, and dynamic well control response in managed these models are only suitable to the two-phase fluid (Nguyen et al.,
pressure drilling (Li et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2020; Qu et al., 2021). There 1981; Xu and Chen, 2000; Xu and Gong, 2008; Li et al., 2020). Besides,
are mature propagation theories concerning the pulse pressure wave in these models have the complexed expressions. In view of this, this paper
single-phase fluid, but for the multiphase fluid including gas, water and focuses on the multiphase fluid, and build a new wave-speed model with
oil, the propagation phenomena of pressure wave are more complicated a simpler expression. Because we pay more attention to the critical flow
and the relevant theory is lacking. velocity, which is equal to the pulse wave-speed. Hence it is no necessary
In the past decades, many researchers studied the propagation phe­ to consider the factor of the disturbance frequency for the pulse prop­
nomena and regularity of pressure wave in single-phase fluid and two- agation where the frequency is infinite.
phase fluid. Henry et al. (1971) conducted the milestone experiments
and reported the wave-speed in gas-water two-phase flow. It is revealed 2. Wave-speed model for multiphase fluid
that the wave-speed rapidly decreases with the increase of gas content
when the gas-phase fraction is less than 0.4 in their experiments. The It is widely accepted that the common fluid such as air and water are
reduction of the wave-speed is particularly apparent in the initial continuous media. Under this assumption, the propagation speed of
increasing stage of gas content. Nguyen et al. (1981) proposed a small disturbance in the single-phase fluid can be described by the
wave-speed model to predict the propagation speed of pressure wave in Laplace equation (Zhou et al. 2000; White, 2012), as follow
gas-liquid two-phase fluid based on the homogeneous hypothesis. The
dp
model shows that the wave-speed first decreases rapidly, then tends to c2 = (1)
dρ
remain unchanged, and finally increases. The Nguyen’s model agrees
well with the exiting experimental data of wave-speed in the gas-water where dp is the pressure variation, dρ is the density variation. This for­
two-phase flow (Henry et al., 1971). mula is the original definition of wave speed. The frequently used
Some research confirmed that the disturbance frequency has influ­ deformation form reads
ence on the propagation of pressure wave. Huang et al. (2004; 2005) √̅̅̅̅̅
reported that the wave-speed decreased if decreasing the disturbance dp
frequency. They believed that, when the disturbance frequency ap­ c= (2)
dρ
proaches an infinite value, the wave-speed tends to a constant. They also
proposed the improved wave-speed model considering the effect of It shows that the wave speed is positively correlated with the pres­
pulsating frequency. In fact, the pressure wave with an infinite fre­ sure variation and inversely correlated with the density variation. This
quency represents the pressure pulse whose wave period approaches to expression can also be rewritten in the form of elastic module (Zhou
0. Therefore, if the pulsating frequency is infinite, the Huang’s model is et al. 2000; White, 2012), as follow
similar with the Nguyen’s model. Li et al. (2011) studied the pressure √̅̅̅̅̅ √̅̅̅̅
wave propagation characteristics in the rocket engine pump pipeline. c=
dp
=
E
(3)
They considered the influence of phase change on the propagation dρ ρ
process of pressure wave. They also built a pressure wave propagation
model for gas-liquid two-phase flow using ensemble-averaging tech­ where ρ is the fluid density, E is the elastic module of fluid material,
niques. Li et al. (2020) also analyzed the propagation pattern in the which is given as follow

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H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

dp dp Table 1
E= ρ= (4)
dρ dρ/ρ Physical parameters of air and water at 20◦ C.
Air Value Water value
For the continue media, the original definition of elastic module is
the ratio of stress and strain, namely 3
Density ρg/(kg/m ) 1.205 3
Density ρw/(kg/m ) 998.2
5
Viscosity μg/(Pa•s) 1.81 × 10− Viscosity μw/(Pa•s) 1.0 × 10− 3
σ dF/S dp Bulk modulus Eg/(Pa) γp Bulk modulus Ew/(Pa) 2.18 × 109
E= = = (5) Pressure p/(bar) 1
ε dL/L dL/L
The elastic module describes the anti-deforming capacity of material.
For the fluid, it represents the compression deformation. σ is the stress, ε the equivalent bulk modulus.
is the strain, S is the cross-section area of control volume, L is the length Similarly, for the multiphase fluid including N-phase in total, it is
of control volume, dF is the applied force, and dL is the deformation. also assumed that the multiphase fluids are homogeneous and their
In fact, formula (4) and formula (5) are not mutually contradictory. distributions are uniform in space. A concept model is shown in Fig 1. It
Formula (5) is the original definition of elastic module. It can be is believed that the wave-speed is related with the average fluid density
confirmed that formula (4) and formula (5) are equivalent. Taking the and the equivalent bulk modulus of the multiphase fluid. Then, the
compressed water column as an example. The water-column mass before definition of the wave-speed in multiphase fluid is given in formula (11).
compression is ρLS, it becomes (ρ+dρ)(L–dL)S after compression. Ac­ √̅̅̅̅̅̅
∑
cording to the mass conservation of fluid, we obtain the following c=
Em
where Em = ∑
1
and ρm = αi ρi (11)
relationship. ρm (αi /Ei )

ρLS = (ρ + dρ)(L − dL)S (6) where

Ignoring the second order small quantity, the above equation is
simplified as dL/L = dρ/ρ. Hence, it is seen that formula (4) and (5) are
equivalent. It should be noted that the second-order quantity can be
ignored only for the problem of small disturbance, in which the varia­
tions of density and volume are enough small.
Formula (3) is the definition of wave-speed in single-phase fluid
under the assumption of continuous medium. For the gas-liquid two-
phase fluid, it is assumed that the two phases are homogeneous (Ye
et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2019) and their distributions are uniform in space
as shown in Fig 1. In other word, the gas-phase fraction is a constant in
any control volume. For the two-phase fluid, the control volume is
occupied by the gas and water. It is assumed that the gas and water share
the same fluid pressure. The wave speed in the mixed-phase fluid is
assessed by a simple model as follow
√̅̅̅̅̅̅
Em
c= (7)
ρm
where ρm is the mixed-phase density of the two-phase fluid, Em is the
equivalent bulk modulus of the two-phase fluid. The mixed density of
the two-phase can be computed by weighting the corresponding density
of water and gas, as follow
ρm = αw ρw + αg ρg (8)
ρm is the mixed-phase density of the two-phase fluid, and it also
represents a average value using weighted mass. The equivalent bulk
modulus can be assessed by the unit force and unit deformation Em=dp/
(dL/L), namely
Em =
dp
=
dp
( / ) (9)
dL/L αw (dLw /Lw ) + αg dLg Lg
where αw(dLw/Lw) is the deformation of liquid-phase, αg(dLg/Lg) is the
deformation of gas-phase. Because dLw/Lw=dp/Ew and dLg/Lg=dp/Eg.
Then, based on formula (9), the equivalent bulk modulus of mixed-phase
fluid is given as follow
1 et al. (Nguyen et al., 1981).
Em = / / (10)
α w Ew + α g Eg
For the isentropic process, there is a quantitative relation dp /dρ = γp
/ρ, where γ is the specific heat ratio of gas. For the air, γ=1.4. Combined
the ideal equation of state p = ρRT, then dp/dρ = γRT. From formula (4)
we obtain the gas elastic modulus Eg = (dp/dρ)ρ = γ ρRT = γp. There­
fore, it is seen that formula (10) not only reflects the influence of gas-
phase fraction, but also embodies the influence of fluid pressure on
∑
represents the sum from i=1 to N for the N-phase fluid. In fact,
formula (11) has clear physical meaning. αiρi represents the real mass of
the i-phase fluid inside a control volume, αi/Ei represents the deforma­
tion of the i-phase fluid when the pressure change is 1 Pa. The formula
(11) is suitable to the two-phase and multiphase flow, for example, i=2
represents the two-phase fluid, i=3 is the three-phase fluid, etc.
Based on above analysis, the main modeling assumptions include:
①The single-phase and multiphase fluid are continuous medium; ②The
fluid is homogeneous and linear elastic medium; ③The multiphase
fluids share the same pressure in each volume. The limitations include:
①The model is not suitable for the stratified flow; ②The model is not
suitable for the multiphase flow with bubble collapse; ③The model is
not suitable for the multiphase flow with phase change.
3. Validation and discussion
In this part, we examine the present model by a classical case of gas-
water two-phase flow. At 20◦ C and 1 bar pressure, the physical pa­
rameters of the air and water are listed in Table 1. The air bulk modulus
is computed from the relationship Eg=γp as introduced in Section 2.
Three pressures are chosen to examine the present model, including
1 bar, 1.76 bar and 4.57 bar, respectively. When the fluid pressure in­
creases, the air density also increases, which is computed by ρg=p/(RT).
Results are shown in Fig 2, it is seen that the predicted wave-speed
approaches 1482 m/s when the gas-phase fraction is close to 0, indi­
cating that the wave-speed is approaching to the one in pure water.
Besides, it is seen that the wave-speed rapidly decreases with the in­
crease of gas-phase fraction. The main reason is that the bulk modulus of
the mixed fluid rapidly reduces while the mixed density only slightly
decreases, giving rise to a significant reduction of wave-speed in the
mixed fluid. In the most void region of gas-liquid two-phase fluid, the
wave-speed is less than 200 m/s. When the gas-phase fraction is con­
stant, the wave-speed increases with the fluid pressure. The main reason
is that the increase of gas-phase bulk modulus is larger than the increase
of gas-phase density when increasing the fluid pressure, causing a slight
increase of wave-speed. As shown in Fig 2, the wave-speed predicted by
formula (11) agrees well with the experimental data given by Henry
For the gas-liquid two-phase fluid, we note that the wave-speed
curve given by the present model is coincident to the one provided by
the Nguyen’s model as shown in Fig 2. The Nguyen’s model is based on
the idea of slug flow Nguyen et al., 1981). Compared with the Nguyen’s
model, the present model has a simpler expression, which can also
clearly reflect the weight change of fluid density and bulk modulus of
the mixed-phase fluid. Moreover, the present model can be used in the
multiphase fluid rather than just limited to the two-phase fluid. Besides,

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H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

Fig 2. Comparison of wave-speed among the present model, Nguyen’s model, and the experimental data given by Henry et al. (1971). The left column is shown in the
semi-log coordination and the right column is exhibited in a uniform coordinate system.

the proposed model can also degrade into the single-phase predicting
∂αi ∂(αi u) ∂(αi v)
model. For example, formula ((11) becomes the sonic speed formula of + + =0 (12b)
i-phase fluid when αi=1. These advantages indicate that the present
∂t ∂x ∂y
model is better than the traditional wave-speed models.
∂(ρm u) ∂(ρm uu) ∂(ρm uv) ∂p ∂τxx ∂τxy
We also examine the usability of the formula (11) for the two-phase + + =− + + (12c)
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂x ∂x ∂y
fluid containing extreme low gas content αg<0.01. Because it is difficult
to conduct the experiment in this gas-phase fraction region, causing the ∂(ρm v) ∂(ρm vu) ∂(ρm vv) ∂p ∂τyx ∂τyy
lack of experimental data. Considering this reason, we compared the + + =− + + (12d)
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂x ∂y
present model results with the numerical data obtained by the CFD
method. The details about the CFD simulation are given in following where i represents the ith phase, ρm is the average mixed density of the
section. multiphase fluid, τxx and τyy are the normal stress, τxy and τyx are the
In the simulation, the multiphase N-S equations are developed based shear stress. αi is the volume fraction of ith phase, which satisfies
on homogeneous assumption, including the mass equation, momentum ∑
αi=1. In fact, the Eq. (12b) is the incompressible mass equation, so it is
equation and phase conservation equation. The N-S equations are shown only used to compute the liquid phase fraction. For the gas-phase, its
in Eq. (12). The two-phase N-S equations are adopted by many re­ volume fraction can be computed by αg=1- αi where i∕
∑
=g. If there are
searchers (Huang et al.,2014; Wróblewski et al 2022). Reference to the multiple gases, the compressible mass equations not shown here should
two-phase N-S equation, the multiphase N-S equations read be further solved after the calculation of Eq. (12b).
∂ρm ∂(ρm u) ∂(ρm v) Eq. (12) is the original multiphase N-S equation and it is solved by
+ + =0 (12a) the direct numerical simulation (DNS) method in the present research,
∂t ∂x ∂y
so no turbulence models are used. The normal and shear stresses are
( ) ( )
∂u
defined by τij = μ ∂∂uxij +∂xji − 23δij μ ∂∂ux +∂∂yv where i=x or i=y, and j=x or

Fig 3. Pressure wave-speed characteristics under different pressure condition. The curves are computed based on the present wave-speed model, the data points are
obtained by CFD simulation in gas-water two-phase fluid. The initial fluid pressures are 0.1 bar, 0.5 bar, 1 bar, 3bar, and 5 bar, respectively.

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H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

Table 2 results show that the wave-speed rapidly decreases with the increase of
The relative error of the model value compared with the CFD result. gas-phase fraction, which is consistent with the exiting theory and the
p/ bar Gas fraction Model value CFD value Relative error present model. It is clearly seen that the wave-speed predicted by the
− 5 present model agrees well with the CFD data. These quantitative com­
0.1 1 × 10 924.16 1051.41 12.1%
1 × 10− 4
363.05 331.79 9.4% parisons confirm that the proposed wave-speed model can provides a
0.001 118.11 105.20 12.3% good predicting result.
0.01 37.63 33.56 12.1% In Fig 3, the partial wave-speed data are lacking when the gas-phase
0.1 12.48 11.17 11.7% fraction is enough small. The main reason is that, the stiffness problem
4
0.5 1 × 10− 728.62 744.05 2.1%
0.001 260.80 234.85 11.0%
appears in the N-S Eq. (12) when the gas-phase fraction is very small.
0.01 84.03 74.79 12.4% The N-S equations (12) can well deal with the gas-liquid multiphase flow
0.1 27.91 24.91 12.0% by considering the compressibility of the mixed-phase fluid. The gas-
1 0.001 363.22 334.00 8.7% phase plays a key role for the calculation of compressible mixed fluid.
0.01 118.65 106.47 11.4%
However, when the gas-phase fraction decreases near to 0, the mixed
0.1 39.46 35.37 11.6%
3 0.001 594.30 578.03 2.8% fluid becomes incompressible, causing the appearance of “stiffness
0.01 204.22 184.16 10.9% problem” during the numerical calculation. The Eq. (12) could not give
0.1 68.30 61.21 11.6% an accurate solution if the stiffness problem exists. Besides, the stiffness
5 0.001 729.02 744.60 2.1% problem is more apparent at higher pressure environment. Therefore,
0.01 262.01 237.53 10.3%
0.1 88.11 78.99 11.5%
partial data are lacking when the gas-phase fraction is less than 0.001.
We further assess the relative error of the model results. The relative
error is defined as follow
j=y, and δij is the Kronecker delta. The numerical method adopted in this
|cm − cs |
study is the MacCormack method, which has a second-order accuracy in Er = × 100% (13)
cs
time and space solution. The main idea of the MacCormack method is
that, after first predicting the pressure and velocity at time step t+dt, the
where cm is the wave-speed given by the present model, cs is the wave-
corrected pressure and velocity are solved at time step t+dt, following speed computed by the CFD simulation. The detailed errors are listed
which the procedure is repeated. For the single-phase flow, the detailed
in Table 2. It is seen that all the relative errors are less than 12.5%,
introduction of MacCormack method can be found in References indicating that the model results are consistent with the CFD simulation
(Anderson,1995; Li et al., 2022). For the multiphase flow, the MacCor­
results.
mack method are given in Appendix A. To examine the usability of formula (11) in multiphase flow, we
The boundary condition is important. For the present simulation, the
further compute the wave-speed in a three-phase fluid including air,
pipe wall is defined to be a no-slip wall where the velocity is zero. The water and gasoline. In fact, there are many scenarios of coexistence of
pressure boundary is applied at the pipe inlet and outlet. To obtain the
oil, gas and water (Yoo et al., 2021; Yoo et al., 2022). One typical
wave-speed in two-phase and multiphase fluid, we monitor the propa­ example is the drainage process of oil-gas-water. Another typical
gation process of pressure pulse. First, a continuous pulse disturbance is
example is the fuel (gasoline mixed with air) burn in the combustion
applied at the pipe inlet (x=0 m), which is chosen as the initial condition chamber, where some water is also injected to cooling the heating wall.
and boundary condition during the simulation. Then, we monitor the
The physical parameters of water and gas are listed in Table 1.
pressure variation at a certain location x=10 m. The propagation time is Without loss of generality, the water-phase fraction is set to a constant
recorded when the pressure pulse travels from the inlet to the monitored
αw=0.1. For the gasoline, its density is 705.5 kg/m3, its bulk modulus is
location. Then, the wave-speed is computed by the traveling distance 0.915 GPa. The gas-phase fraction changes from 0 to 0.4. The gasoline
and time. During the simulation, the grid dependence test was con­
fraction varies from 0.9 to 0.5. The model results are exhibited using the
ducted. Finally, 2000 grids are adopted in the propagation direction in curves shown in Fig 4. The numerical CFD data are exhibited using the
between the initial position and monitored location.
discrete data points. Results indicate that the wave-speed provided by
Five representative pressures are chosen here including 0.1 bar, 0.5 the present model is consistent well with the CFD data. We also examine
bar, 1 bar, 3 bar and 5 bar, respectively. As shown in Fig 3, the CFD
the model by choosing another water-phase fraction αw=0.3. The

Fig 4. Wave-speed variation characteristics in three-phase fluid including air, water and gasoline, where the water-phase fraction is constant αw=0.1. The curves are
computed based on the present wave-speed model, the data points are obtained by CFD simulation. The initial fluid pressures are 1 bar, 3bar, and 5 bar, respectively.

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H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

Fig 5. Wave-speed variation characteristics in three-phase fluid including air, water and gasoline, where the water-phase fraction is constant αw=0.3. The curves are
computed based on the present wave-speed model, the data points are obtained by CFD simulation. The initial fluid pressures are 1 bar, 3bar, and 5 bar, respectively.

model can be used in multiphase fluid, such as including gas, water, oil
Table 3
and so on. Moreover, the present model has a very simple expression and
Comparison of main wave-speed models.
avoids the complex calculation of dispersion equation encountered in
Authors Models Advantages Comments the previous models.
Nguyen’s c = The first Limited to
model 1
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
model used in two-phase 4. Conclusion
(1981) √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
αw αg ρw αg αw ρg two-phase fluid and focus
[13]
αw + + αg +
fluid with on the pulse
cw2 ρg cg2 c2g ρw c2w
clear principle propagation.
In this paper, we first analyze the characteristic of multi-phase fluid
Huang’s
⎧
⎨ ②Solvedispersionequation Considering It is limited to and build a new wave-speed model based on the homogenous assump­
model 1 ⃒[ w ]+ [ w ]− ⃒⃒ the wave two-phase tion. Then, we compare the present model results with the exiting
⎩ ②c = ⃒⃒
(2004) 2 Re(k)
−
Re(k)
⃒ frequency and fluid, formula experimental data. Finally, based on the CFD method, we further
[4] can be used to and solving
examine the accuracy of the present model by comparing the model
pulse and process are
pulsating complex. results with the numerical simulation data. The main results are
problem concluded as follow.
⎧
Li et al. ⎨ ②Solvedispersionequation Considering Essentially the
model the factors of model is
1 ⃒[ w ]+ [ w ]− ⃒⃒
⎩ ②c = ⃒⃒ (1) The proposed wave-speed model relates the wave-speed with the
(2011; 2 Re(k)
−
Re(k)
⃒ phase change similar to
2016) and gravity Huang’s
mixed-phase fluid density and equivalent bulk modulus, which
[7,14] etc. model and the has a very simple expression. More importantly, the present new
solving model is applicable to the multi-phase fluid, which is remarkably
process is better than the traditional models. Because the traditional models
complex.
are mainly applicable to the two-phase fluid. Besides, the present
Present 1 Applicable to Focus on the
c = √∑
̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
∑ ̅ model avoids the complex solving process due to its simple
model αi ρi (αi /Ei ) multi-phase pulse
fluid and the propagation so expression. These advantages provide a great convenience for the
formula is does not engineering application of the new model.
very simple consider wave (2) By comparison with the experimental data, it is found that the
frequency
wave-speed predicted by the present model agrees well with the
exiting experimental results. The model results are also consistent
comparisons are shown in Fig 5. It is seen that the model values agree with the numerical simulation results. The relative errors are less
with the numerical solutions. These quantitative comparisons further than 12.5%. These quantitative comparisons further validate the
validate the usability and accuracy of the present new model given in reliability and accuracy of the proposed model.
formula (11). (3) For the multi-phase fluid containing extremely low void fraction,
Here, we compare the proposed wave-speed model with the previous the wave-speed data are lacking. It is difficult to obtain these data
representative models. The main models are listed in Table 3. The new by experiments when the gas-phase fraction is extremely low
model proposed in this paper is rewritten in Eq. (14). such as less than 1% even 0.1%. In view of this, this paper gives
√̅̅̅̅̅̅ the wave-speed data and fills the gap. These data can provide a
Em valuable reference for the engineering application.
c= (14)
ρm
Author Statement
where the equivalent bulk modulus isEm = ∑(α1 /E ), and the mixed-phase
i i
∑ Heng Li: The first author, who puts forward a new theoretical model,
density is ρm = ∑ 1∑
αi ρi . It can also be written as c = √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅. In
αi ρi (αi /Ei ) develops the calculation program, gives the simulation verification,
theory, the present model is applicable to multi-phase fluid, which is writes the paper, and analyzes the results.
significantly better than the traditional models. Because the traditional
models are mainly used in the two-phase fluid. In contrast, the present

6
H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

Declaration of competing interest Acknowledgements

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence province of China (Grant No. BK20221123).
the work reported in this paper.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

APPENDIX A

In this part, we give the numerical method and procedure adopted in this paper. Considering the similar calculation process between the two-phase
flow and multiphase flow, the gas-water two-phase flow is taken as an example to show. For the two-dimensional gas-liquid two-phase flow, the
multiphase N-S Eq. (12) given in Section 3 can be rewritten in the form of two-phase as follow
⎧
⎪
⎪ ∂ρ ∂(ρm u) ∂(ρm v)
⎪ m=−
⎪ −
⎪
⎪ ∂t ∂x ∂y
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ∂αl = − ∂(αl u) − ∂(αl v) + Sm
⎪
⎪
⎨ ∂t ∂x ∂y
(A1)
⎪
⎪ ∂(ρm u) ∂(ρm uu) ∂(ρm uv) ∂p
⎪
⎪ = − − − + Vis
⎪
⎪ ∂t ∂x ∂y ∂x x
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ∂(ρm v) ∂(ρm vu) ∂(ρm vv) ∂p
⎪
⎪ =− − − + Visy
⎩
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂y

where Visc and Visy are the viscous terms, which can be discretized by the second-order central difference scheme. The subscript l represents the liquid
phase. For the gas-liquid two-phase flow, the main idea of the MacCormack method is that, after first predicting the density, pressure and velocity at
time-step t+Δt, the corrected density, pressure and velocity are solved at time-step t+Δt, following which the procedure is repeated. The differential
equation can be written in the discrete form
⎧( ) t t
⎪
⎪
⎪ ∂ρm t (ρ u)t − (ρm u)ti (ρm v)j+1 − (ρm v)j
⎪
⎪ = − m i+1 −
⎪
⎪ ∂t i,j Δxi+1 Δyj+1
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( )t
⎪
⎪ t t t
(αl u)i+1 − (αl u)i (αl v)j+1 − (αl v)j
t
⎪ ∂αl
⎪
⎪
⎪ =− − + Sm
⎨ ∂t i,j Δxi+1 Δyj+1
( ) (A2)
⎪
⎪ ∂ρm u t
t t
(ρm uu)ti+1 − (ρm uu)ti (ρm uv)j+1 − (ρm uv)j pti+1 − pti
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ =− − − + Visx
⎪
⎪
⎪
∂t i,j Δxi+1 Δyj+1 Δxi+1
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( )t t t
⎪
⎪ ∂ρm v (ρ vu)t − (ρm vu)ti (ρm vv)j+1 − (ρm vv)j ptj+1 − ptj
⎪
⎪
⎩ ∂t = − m i+1 − − + Visy
i,j Δxi+1 Δyj+1 Δyj+1

The time derivative term is discretized into the difference form, including the predicting variables, as follows.
⎧
⎪
⎪ (ρm )t+Δt
i,j − (ρm )ti,j t
(ρ u)t − (ρm u)ti (ρm v)j+1 − (ρm v)j
t
⎪
⎪
⎪ = − m i+1 −
⎪
⎪ Δt Δxi+1 Δyj+1
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ t+Δt t t t
⎪
⎪ (αl )i,j − (αl )i,j t t
(αl u)i+1 − (αl u)i (αl v)j+1 − (αl v)j
⎪
⎪ =− − + Sm
⎪
⎨ Δt Δxi+1 Δyj+1
(A3)
⎪
⎪ (ρm u)t+Δt − (ρm u)ti,j t t
(ρm uu)ti+1 − (ρm uu)ti (ρm uv)j+1 − (ρm uv)j pti+1 − pti
⎪
⎪ i,j
⎪
⎪ = − − − + Visx
⎪
⎪ Δt Δxi+1 Δyj+1 Δxi+1
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ (ρm v)t+Δt − (ρm v)ti,j t t
(ρ vu)t − (ρm vu)ti (ρm vv)j+1 − (ρm vv)j ptj+1 − ptj
⎪
⎪ i,j
⎩ = − m i+1 − − + Visy
Δt Δxi+1 Δyj+1 Δyj+1

From above discrete equations, the prediction variables (ρm )t+Δt t+Δt t+Δt
i,j , (αl )i,j , ui,j and vt+Δt
i,j are obtained. Then, the predicting gas-phase fraction and
pressure are obtained as follow
⎧ ( )t+Δt
⎪
⎪
⎪ αg i,j = 1 − (αl )t+Δt
i,j
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎨ ( )t+Δt (ρm )t+Δt − (αl )t+Δt
i,j ρl
(A4)
i,j
ρg i,j = ( )t+Δt
⎪
⎪ αg i,j
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( ) ( )
⎪
⎩ p t+Δt t+Δt
= ρ
g i,j g i,j RT

7
H. Li International Journal of Multiphase Flow 164 (2023) 104464

where subscript g represents the gas-phase, R is the gas constant, T is the temperature. The liquid-phase and gas-phase share the same pressure based
on the mixed-phase model assumption. Hence, the (pg )t+Δt
i,j also represents the predicting liquid-phase pressure (p)t+Δt
i,j .
The predicting derivative terms are given by Eq. (A5)
⎧( ) t t
⎪
⎪
⎪ ∂ρm t+Δt (ρ u)t − (ρm u)ti− 1 (ρm v)j − (ρm v)j− 1
⎪
⎪ =− m i −
⎪
⎪ ∂t i,j
⎪
⎪
Δxi Δyj
⎪
⎪ ( )t+Δt
⎪
⎪ ∂αl t t t t
(αl u)i − (αl u)i− 1 (αl v)j − (αl v)j− 1
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ =− − + Sm
⎨ ∂t i,j Δxi Δyj
( ) (A5)
⎪
⎪ ∂ρm u t+Δt
t t
(ρ uu)t − (ρm uu)ti− 1 (ρm uv)j − (ρm uv)j− 1 (p)ti − (p)ti− 1
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ =− m i − − + Visx
⎪
⎪
⎪
∂t i,j Δxi Δyj Δxi
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( ) t t t t
⎪
⎪
⎪ ∂ρm v t+Δt (ρ vu)t − (ρm vu)ti− 1 (ρm vv)j − (ρm vv)j− 1 (p)j − (p)j− 1
⎪
⎩ ∂t =− m i − − + Visy
i,j Δxi Δyj Δyj

Finally, the corrected density, liquid-phase fraction and velocity are obtained as follows:
(( ) ( ) )
⎧
⎪ t+Δt t Δt ∂ρm t ∂ρm t+Δt
⎪
⎪ (ρm )i,j = (ρm )i,j + +
⎪
⎪ 2 ∂t i,j ∂t i,j
⎪
⎪
⎪ (
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( ) ( ) )
⎪
⎪
⎪ t+Δt t Δt ∂αl t ∂αl t+Δt
⎪
⎪ (α l )i,j = (α l )i,j + +
⎨ 2 ∂t i,j ∂t i,j
(( )t ( ) ) (A6)
⎪
⎪
⎪ (ρ u)t+Δt = (ρ u)t + Δt
⎪ ∂ρm u ∂ρm u t+Δt
⎪
⎪ m i,j m i,j +
⎪
⎪ 2 ∂t i,j ∂t i,j
⎪
⎪
⎪ ((
⎪
⎪
⎪ ) t ( ) )
⎪
⎪
⎩ (ρm v)t+Δt t Δt ∂ρm v ∂ρm v t+Δt
i,j = (ρm v)i,j + +
2 ∂t i,j ∂t i,j
⎧ ( )t+Δt
t+Δt
⎪
⎪ αg i,j = 1 − (αl )i,j
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎨ ( )t+Δt (ρm )t+Δt − (αl )t+Δti,j ρl
(A7)
i,j
ρg i,j = ( )t+Δt
⎪
⎪ αg i,j
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎩ ( p )t+Δt = ( ρ )t+Δt RT
⎪
g i,j g i,j

The calculation process and steps are as follows.

①. Set initial value and boundary value.

②. Calculate the derivative value of each parameter at time t according to Eq. (A2).
③. Calculate the predicted value of liquid phase according to Eq. (A3).
④. Calculate the predicted value of gas phase according to Eq. (A4).
⑤. Define the predicted value on the boundary.
⑥. Calculate the predicted derivative of each parameter at the time of t+Δt according to Eq. (A5).
⑦. Calculate the corrected value of liquid phase at the time of t+Δt according to Eq. (A6).
⑧. Calculate the corrected value of gas phase at the time of t+Δt according to Eq. (A7).
⑨. Define the corrected values on the boundary.
⑩. Repeat steps ② to ⑨ above until the calculation termination conditions are met.

For the multiphase flow including gas, water and oil, the calculation process is similar with the gas-water two-phase case. Yet it’s worth noting that
the liquid phase fraction should be solved at first, then the gas phase fraction can be solved based on the liquid phase fraction.

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