Characteristics of Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow Patterns in Miniature Channel Having a Gas Permeable Sidewall

Author(s):  
H. Yang ◽  
T. S. Zhao ◽  
P. Cheng

Characteristics of gas-liquid two-phase flow patterns in a miniature square cross-section channel having a gas permeable sidewall have been investigated visually using a high-speed motion analyzer. The problem under consideration is encountered in the design of Direct Feed Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFC). The test section was a horizontally oriented rectangular transparent (Lucite material) channel with its lower wall consisting of a porous plate. Liquid was fed into the test section from its entrance, while gas was injected uniformly into the test section along the lower porous sidewall. The visual study shows the typical flow patterns found in the test section include bubbly flow, plug flow, slug flow, and annular flow. However, unlike the conventional co-current two-phase flow in a channel with gas and liquid uniformly entering from one of its ends, for the flow configuration considered in this work, it was found that two or three of the above mentioned flow patterns appeared simultaneously at different locations of the channel. The length of each flow pattern varied with the flow rates of liquid and gas. A distinct feature of annular flow for the present flow configuration is that small bubbles were continuously generated from the porous plate, which grew by blowing up the liquid film, formed a semi-sphere shape, and then ruptured and released gas into the core flow.

Author(s):  
Bai Bofeng ◽  
Liu Maolong ◽  
Su Wang ◽  
Zhang Xiaojie

An experimental study was conducted on the air-water two-phase flow patterns in the bed of rectangular cross sections containing spheres of regular distribution. Three kinds of glass spheres with different diameters (3 mm, 6 mm, and 8 mm) were used for the establishment of the test section. By means of visual observations of the two-phase flow through the test section, it was discovered that five different flow patterns occurred within the experimental parameter ranges, namely, bubbly flow, bubbly-slug flow, slug flow, slug-annular flow, and annular flow. A correlation for the bubble and slug diameter in the packed beds was proposed, which was an extended expression of the Tung/Dhir model, Jamialahmadi’s model, and Schmidt’s model. Three correlations were proposed to calculate the void friction of the flow pattern transition in bubble flow, slug flow, and annular flow based on the bubble model in the pore region. The experimental result showed that the modified Tung and Dhir model of the flow pattern transition was in better agreement with the experimental data compared with Tung and Dhir’s model.


Author(s):  
Bofeng Bai ◽  
Maolong Liu ◽  
Xiaojie Zhang

An experimental study was conducted on the air-water two-phase flow patterns and pressure drop in the bed of rectangular cross section containing spheres of regular distribution. Three kinds of glass spheres with different diameters (3mm, 6mm and 8mm) were used for the establishment of the test section. By means of visual observations of the two-phase flow through the test section, it was discovered that five different flow patterns occur in the experimental parameter ranges, namely bubbly flow, bubbly-slug flow, slug flow, slug-annular flow and annular flow. A correlation for bubble and slug diameter in packed beds was proposed, which is an extension of the Tung/Dhir model, Jamialahmadi’s model and Schmidt’s model. Three correlations were proposed to calculate the void friction of flow regime transition in bubble flow, slug flow and annular flow based on the bubble model in the pore region. The experimental result shows that the modified Tung and Dhir’s model of flow pattern transition is a better agreement with the experimental data compared with Tung and Dhir’s model.


Author(s):  
Hideo Ide ◽  
Masahiro Kawaji

The studies on microfluidics have advanced with the use of microchannels in micro bioreactors, applications in biomedical engineering, bioengineering and pharmaceuticals, fuel cells and compact heat exchangers for heating and cooling of micro electro mechanical systems. For a wide application of microchannels, it is very important to elucidate the effect of the tube diameters on the flow phenomena of gas liquid two-phase flow in microchannels. The flow phenomena and the frictional pressure drop of gas-liquid two-phase flow were investigated experimentally by using three kinds of circular microchannels made of fused silica tubes, with inner diameters of 0.1 mm, 0.15 mm and 0.25mm. In these channels, bubbly flow, slug-churn flow, and annular flow were observed. In annular flow, two characteristic flows of ring film flow and disturbed ring film flow were observed. For the 0.25 mm diameter microchannel, several conductance probe sensors were flush mounted to the channel wall in order to measure the very thin mean film thickness or liquid holdup in a microchannel. The flow patterns maps were also made by using the high speed video images and the holdup wave signals. The effects of tube diameter on the flow patterns were investigated.


Author(s):  
Jacqueline Barber ◽  
Khellil Sefiane ◽  
David Brutin ◽  
Lounes Tadrist

Boiling in microchannels remains elusive due to the lack of full understanding of the mechanisms involved. A powerful tool in achieving better comprehension of the mechanisms is detailed imaging and analysis of the two phase flow at a fundamental level. We induced boiling in a single microchannel geometry (hydraulic diameter 727 μm), using a refrigerant FC-72, to investigate several flow patterns. A transparent, metallic, conductive deposit has been developed on the exterior of rectangular microchannels, allowing simultaneous uniform heating and visualisation to be conducted. The data presented in this paper is for a particular case with a uniform heat flux of 4.26 kW/m2 applied to the microchannel and inlet liquid mass flowrate, held constant at 1.33×10−5 kg/s. In conjunction with obtaining high-speed images and videos, sensitive pressure sensors are used to record the pressure drop profiles across the microchannel over time. Bubble nucleation, growth and coalescence, as well as periodic slug flow, are observed in the test section. Phenomena are noted, such as the aspect ratio and Reynolds number of a vapour bubble, which are in turn correlated to the associated pressure drops over time. From analysis of our results, images and video sequences with the corresponding physical data obtained, it is possible to follow visually the nucleation and subsequent both ‘free’ and ‘confined’ growth of a vapour bubble over time.


Author(s):  
Hideo Ide ◽  
Kentaro Satonaka ◽  
Tohru Fukano

Experiments were performed to obtain, analyze and clarify the mean void fraction, the mean liquid holdup, and the liquid slug velocity and the air-water two-phase flow patterns in horizontal rectangular microchannels, with the dimensions equal to 1.0 mm width × 0.1 mm depth, and 1.0 mm width × 0.2 mm depth, respectively. The flow patterns such as bubble flow, slug flow and annular flow were observed. The microchannel data showed similar data patterns compared to those in minichannels with the width of 1∼10mm and the depth of 1mm which we had previously reported on. However, in a 1.0 × 0.1 mm microchannel, the mean holdup and the base film thickness in annular flow showed larger values because the effects of liquid viscosity and surface tension on the holdup and void fraction dominate. The remarkable flow characteristics of rivulet flow and the flow with a partial dry out of the channel inner wall were observed in slug flow and annular flow patterns in the microchannel of 0.1 mm depth.


Author(s):  
Claudi Marti´n-Callizo ◽  
Bjo¨rn Palm ◽  
Wahib Owhaib ◽  
Rashid Ali

The present work reports on flow boiling visualization of refrigerant R-134a in a vertical circular channel with internal diameter of 1.33 mm and 235 mm in heated length. Quartz tube with a homogeneous ITO-coating is used allowing heating and simultaneous visualization. Flow patterns have been observed along the heated length with the aid of a digital camera with close-up lenses. From the flow boiling visualization, seven distinct two-phase flow patterns have been observed: Isolated bubbly flow, confined bubbly flow, slug flow, churn flow, slug-annular flow, annular flow, and mist flow. Two-phase flow pattern observations are presented in the form of flow pattern maps. Finally, the experimental flow pattern map is compared to models developed for conventional sizes as well as to a microscale map for air-water mixtures available in the literature, showing a large discrepancy.


Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeyad Almutairi ◽  
Fayez M. Al-Alweet ◽  
Yusif A. Alghamdi ◽  
Omar A. Almisned ◽  
Othman Y. Alothman

Experiments of gas–liquid flow in a circular pipe for horizontal and inclined positions (upward/downward) are reported. The characteristics of two-phase flow in terms of liquid holdup (ε(L)) and induced flow patterns are studied using three experimental techniques; time-averaged ε(L) from permittivity profiles using electrical capacitance tomography (ECT), instantaneous ε(L) using two fast-closing valves (TFCV), and high-speed camera images (HSCI) to capture/identify the formed flow patterns. Thus, this experimental setup enables the development of more well-defined flow patterns in gas–liquid two-phase flow and allows for multi-technique verification of the results. Taken from experimental measurements, a model is proposed to predict ε(L) for high and low situations. The correlations are a function of the hydrodynamic dimensionless quantities which provide hydrodynamic similarity. Regarding different pipe orientations, ε(L) predictions are comparable to ε(L) from experimental measurements with accepted accuracy: 88% of the predictions are within ±5–15% and 98% are below ±20%. The correlations also were validated by reported results and against correlations available in the literature and show higher prediction accuracy. It is confirmed that the kinematic similarity which is achieved by the gas–liquid velocity ratios and the inertial forces influence the flow pattern and the liquid holdup.


Author(s):  
J. L. H. Faccini ◽  
J. Su ◽  
G. D. Harvel ◽  
J. S. Chang

In this paper, we present a hybrid type contrapropagating transmission ultrasonic technique (CPTU) for flow and time averaging ultrasonic transmission intensity void fraction measurements (TATIU) of air-water two-phase flow, which is tested in the new two-phase flow test section mounted recently onto an existing single phase flow rig at the Nuclear Engineering Institute (IEN)/CNEN, Brazil. The circular pipe test section is made of 51.2 mm stainless steel, followed by a transparent extruded acrylic pipe aimed at flow visualization. The two-phase flow rig operates in several flow regimes: bubbly, smooth stratified, wavy stratified and slug flow. The observed flow patterns are compared with the Mandhane et al.’s experimental and Lightstone et al.’s numerical flow regime map for horizontal two phase flows. These flow patterns will be identified by time averaging transmission intensity ultrasonic techniques which have been developed to meet this particular application. A contrapropagating transmission ultrasonic flowmeter is used to measure the flow rate of liquid phase. A pulse-echo TATIU ultrasonic technique used to measure the void fraction of the horizontal test section assembling at IEN is presented. Other flow parameters can be deduced by processing the signals obtained by the CPTU ultrasonic flowmeter and the pulse-echo generator-receiver (TATIU system).


2020 ◽  
Vol 846 ◽  
pp. 289-295
Author(s):  
Sukamta ◽  
Sudarja

Two-phase flow has been used in so many industrial processes, such as boilers, reactors, heat exchangers, geothermal and others. Some parameters which need to be studied include flow patterns, void fractions, and pressure changes. Research on void fractions aims to determine the composition of the gas and liquid phases that will affect the nature and value of the flow property. The purpose of this study is to find out the characteristics of the void fraction of various patterns that occurs and to determine the characteristics of the velocity, length, and frequency of bubbly and plug. Data acquisition was used to convert the data from analog to digital so that it can be recorded, stored, processed, and analyzed. High-speed camera Nikon type J4 was used to record the flow. The condition of the study was adiabatic with variation of superficial gas velocity (JG), superficial fluid velocity (JL), and also working fluid. To determine the void fraction by using the digital image processing method. The results of the study found that the flow patterns which occurred in this study were bubbly, plug, annular, slug-annular and churn flows. It also showed that the void fraction value is determined by the superficial velocity of the liquid and air. The higher the superficial velocity of the air, the lower the void fraction value.


Author(s):  
S. Zeguai ◽  
S. Chikh ◽  
O. Rahli ◽  
L. Tadrist

An experimental apparatus is setup to analyze a co-current air-water two phase flow in a 3 mm inner diameter tube with horizontal and vertical orientations. Air is axially injected through a nozzle of 260 μm of inner diameter. Air and water flow rates are accurately controlled at the inlet, covering a range of apparent velocities JL = 0.00118 to 0.0786 m/s, JG = 0.002 to 3.538 m/s for the horizontal tube and JL = 0.00078 to 0.0589 m/s, JG = 0.003 to 3.538 m/s for the upward flow. A fast camera with 250 fps is utilized to visualize the flow patterns. The experiments showed that the flow structures are very sensitive to inlet conditions. Within the covered range of velocities, several flow patterns were observed, namely bubbly flow, bubbly-slug transition flow, slug flow, slug-annular transition flow, annular flow, wavy annular flow and annular flow with dry zones. In the bubbly flow regime, a particular bubbly helical flow is observed before the dispersed bubbly flow.


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