Wax deposit law under gas-liquid intermittent flow pattern

With multiphase flow wax deposition experiment circuit and high wax content of crude oil as the experimental medium, an experimental study is carried out on the wax deposition law of gas-liquid two-phase flow to indicate the wax deposition layer thickness changes based on flow pattern influencing factors such as equivalent liquid velocity, equivalent gas velocity and intermittent frequency. As shown from the result, wax deposits follow a uniform circular distribution on the pipe wall under the intermittent flow pattern. If the equivalent liquid velocity is constant, average wax deposition layer thickness will be reduced with the increase of the equivalent gas velocity, if the equivalent gas velocity remains constant and the equivalent liquid velocity is lower, the average wax deposition layer thickness will be increased with an increase of the equivalent liquid velocity, if the equivalent liquid velocity is higher, the average wax deposition layer thickness will be reduced with the increase of the equivalent liquid velocity and if the equivalent gas velocity remains constant, slug frequency will be significantly increased with the increase of the equivalent liquid velocity, so that the average wax deposition layer thickness will follow a declining trend. The research result lays a foundation for setup of kinetic model for wax deposition under gas-liquid two-phase flow.