Some characteristics of developing bubbly flow in a vertical mini pipe

Accurate prediction of the flow parameters is essential to successful development of the interfacial transfer terms in the two-phase flow formulation in a mini channel. From this point of view, axial measurements of flow parameters such as void fraction, interfacial area concentration, gas velocity, bubble Sauter mean diameter, and bubble number density were performed by the image processing method at five axial locations in vertical upward developing bubbly flows using a 1.02 mm-diameter pipe. The frictional pressure loss was also measured by a differential pressure cell. In the experiment, the superficial liquid velocity and the void fraction ranged from 1.02 m/s to 4.89 m/s and from 0.980% to 24.6%, respectively. The constitutive equation for the drift velocity applicable to mini channel flow was developed by considering the effect of the frictional pressure loss on the drift velocity. The constitutive equation for the distribution parameter was also developed by considering the flow transition from laminar to turbulent flows. The drift-flux model with the modeled constitutive equations for the distribution parameter and drift velocity agreed with the measured void fractions within the averaged prediction accuracy of ±6.76%. The applicability of the existing interfacial area concentration model to mini channel flow was validated by the measured interfacial data. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.