Study of the two-phase liquid loading phenomenon by applying CFD techniques

In order to understand the liquid loading phenomenon, 2D (axisymmetric) numerical simulations were performed. This phenomenon appears when the gas velocity reduces to a value below the critical speed of drop extraction in two-phase production wells, and as consequence liquid is accumulated in the tubing, increasing the pressure drop and reducing the flow rate within the tube. Simulations were made using air-water as working fluids over a vertical pipe of 4 meters long through a commercial package of CFD. Comparison between the simulation results and the experimental data available in the literature shows a good capability of homogeneous models to predict the flow characteristics for a given velocity range close to the critical gas velocity; over 100% of this parameter the model significantly overestimates the pressure drop

Combining formal and functional approaches to topic structure

Item does not contain fulltextFragmentation between formal and functional approaches to prosodic variation is an ongoing problem in linguistic research. In particular, the frameworks of the Phonetics of Talk-in-Interaction (PTI) and Empirical Phonology (EP) take very different theoretical and methodological approaches to this kind of variation. We argue that it is fruitful to adopt the insights of both PTI's qualitative analysis and EP's quantitative analysis and combine them into a multiple-methods approach. One realm in which it is possible to combine these frameworks is in the analysis of discourse topic structure and the prosodic cues relevant to it. By combining a quantitative and a qualitative approach to discourse topic structure, it is possible to give a better account of the observed variation in prosody, for example in the case of fundamental frequency (F0) peak timing, which can be explained in terms of pitch accent distribution over different topic structure categories. Similarly, local and global patterns in speech rate variation can be better explained and motivated by adopting insights from both PTI and EP in the study of topic structure. Combining PTI and EP can provide better accounts of speech data as well as opening up new avenues of investigation which would not have been possible in either approach alone