Predicting hydrate film growth on the wall from water droplet deposition in gas-dominant flowlines

A 'top-of-lme' (TOL) corrosion model is adapted to estimate rates of hydrate film growth on the wall in low-liquid-holdup flowhnes. Water droplet deposition rates, as a function of the angle from the top of the pipe, are coupled with a kinetic hydrate growth model. For the first time, this two-dimensional model predicts the characteristic 'keyhole-like' hydrate deposit cross sections observed in flowloop experiments. This represents a significant advance in accurately predicting the hydrate deposit thickness - which is not always uniform around the pipe inner periphery - and is a key step towards implementing sloughing and jamming models.