Combined APSO-ANN and APSO-ANFIS models for prediction of pressure loss in air-water two-phase slug flow in a horizontal pipeline

Prediction of air-water two-phase flow frictional pressure loss in pressurized tunnels and pipelines is essentially in the design of proper hydraulic structures and pump systems. In the present study artificial neural networks (ANN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) are employed to predict pressure loss in air-water two-phase slug flow. Adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) is also applied to optimize the results of the ANN and ANFIS models. To predict the pressure loss in two-phase flow, the frictional pressure loss coefficient needs to be determined with respect to the effective dimensionless parameters including two-phase flow Froude and Weber numbers and the air concentration. Laboratory test results are used to determine and validate the findings of this study. The performances of the ANN-APSO and ANFIS-APSO models are compared with those of the ANN and ANFIS models. Different comparison criteria are used to evaluate the performances of developed models, suggesting that all the models successfully determine the air-water two-phase slug flow pressure loss coefficient. However, the ANFIS-APSO performs better than other models. Good agreement is obtained between estimated and measured values, indicating that the APSO with a conjugated ANFIS model successfully estimates the air-water two-phase slug flow pressure loss coefficient as a complex hydraulic problem. Results suggest that the proposed models are more accurate compared to former empirical correlations in the literature.