What is it?
The FlowPatternAnalyzer is a tool for visualizing velocities, volume fractions, mass fractions, frictional and hydrostatic pressure losses, forces on each phase, and the flow regimes in steady-state two- or three-phase flow. It is simply a graphical user interface on top of the FlowRegimeEngine. It draws a flow regime map for the fluid properties and pipe data given, and the user can move the cursor around inside it to get to know what the various parameters would become for each set of superficial velocities. The elevation angles, viscosities and so on can easily be modified by trackbars, like on a music mixing console. The video below demonstrates the it.
The FlowPatternAnalyzer is particularly useful for early phase investigation of alternative flowline designs. It is a very fast way to get first impressions of slug limits for various elevation angles and choices of line diameters. It also shows frictions, hydrostatic pressure losses, and liquid buildup. The NN-based system used in the underlying FlowRegimeEngine uses a score-system to determine how likely each flow regime is to occur for a particular set of data. When two or more regimes get relatively similar score, it indicates high flow regime uncertainty. As the video shows, this extra information is also presented by the FlowPatternAnalyzer.
