Flow characteristics and regime transition of aqueous foams in porous media over a wide range of quality,velocity,and surfactant concentration

Aqueous foam is broadly applicable to enhanced oil recovery(EOR).The rheology of foam as a function of foam quality,gas and liquid velocities,and surfactant concentration constitute the foundation of its application.The great variations of the above factors can affect the effectiveness of N2 foam in EOR continuously in complex formations,which is rarely involved in previous relevant studies.This paper presents an experimental study of foam flow in porous media by injecting pre-generated N2 foam into a sand pack under the conditions of considering a wide range of gas and liquid velocities and surfactant concentrations.The results show that in a wide range of gas and liquid velocities,the pressure gradient contours are L-shaped near the coordinate axes,but V-shaped in other regions.And the surfactant concentration is a strong factor influencing the trend of pressure gradient contours.Foam flow resistance is very sensitive to the surfactant concentration in both the high-and low-foam quality regime,especially when the surfactant concentration is less than CMC.The foam quality is an important variable to the flow resistance obtained.There exists a transition point from low-to high-quality regime in a particular flow system,where has the maximum flow resistance,the corresponding foam quality is called transition foam quality,which increases as the surfactant concentration increases.The results can add to our knowledge base of foam rheology in porous media,and can provide a strong basis for the field application of foams.

Micro-flow structure at regime transition from bubbling to turbulent fluidization in a fluidized bed

Gas-solid fluidized beds have found extensive utilization in frontline manufacturing,in particular as low-velocity beds.The fluidization status,the bubbling or turbulent flow regime and the transition in between,determine the system performance in practical applications.Though the convoluted hydrodynamics are quantitively evaluated through numerous data-processing methodologies,none of them alone can reflect all the critical information to identify the transition from the bubbling to the turbulent regime.Accordingly,this study was to exploit a coupling data processing methodology,in the combination of standard deviation,power spectrum density,probability density function,wavelet transform,and wavelet multiresolution method,to jointly explain the micro-flow structure at the regime transition from bubbling to turbulent fluidization.The transient differential pressure fluctuation was measured for the evaluation in a fluidized bed(0.267 m i.d.×2.5 m height)with FCC catalysts(d_(p)=65μm,ρ_(p)=1780kg/m^(3))at different superficial gas velocities(0.02–1.4 m/s).The results show that the onset of turbulent fluidization starts earlier in the top section of the bed than in the bottom section.The wavelet decomposition displays that the fluctuation of differential pressure mainly concentrates on the sub-signals with an intermediate frequency band.These sub-signals could be synthesized into three types of scales(micro-scale,meso-scale,and macro-scale),representing the multi-scale hydrodynamics in the fluidized bed.The micro-scale signal has the characteristic information of bubbling fluidization,and the characteristic information of turbulent fluidization is mainly represented by the meso-scale signal.This work provides a systematic comprehension of fluidization status assessment and serves as an impetus for more coupling analysis in this sector.

Nonlinear characteristics analyses of particle motion for predicting flow regimes

Gas-solid flow regimes have a significant impact on particle transport and separation in a fluidized bed reactor.In this study,to determine flow regime transitions in gas-solid fluidized beds,an acoustic technique was used to detect and analyze the behavior of gas and solids.Algorithm complexity,fluctuation complexity,and Shannon entropy analyses of acoustic emission signals were performed to examine non linear system characteristics,and to determine the flow regime transiti on velocities uc,uk,and ufd-Moreover,using the standard deviation of pressure signals,pressure measurements and acoustic measurements were compared.The relative deviations(RDs)between the experimental and empirical values of uk were 8.8%,13.7%,8.8%,and 30.4%for the algorithm complexity,fluctuation complexity,Shannon entropy,and pressure signal standard deviation,respectively,while the respective RDs for Ufd were 15.7%,23.9%,15.7%,and 97.8%.The RDs between the experimental and empirical values of uc were all 6.4%.The experimental values obtained from acoustic signal measurements were therefore closer to the empirical values.In summary,the integration of non-intrusive acoustic measurements,complexity analysis,and Shannon entropy analysis is suitable for identifying flow regime transitions.

Hydrodynamic Behavior in a Tapered Bubble Column

The experiment was conducted to explore the hydrodynamics in a conical column with a height of 3.00 m, and a taper angle of 1.91°. Three regimes occur in succession with increasing superficial gas velocity. Overall gas holdup increases with an increase in gas velocity and a decrease in solid concentration or static slurry height. Axial solid holdup becomes more uniform with increasing gas velocity, while axial gas holdup decreases from the bottom to the top. Both dry and wet pressure drops across the gas distributor increase with an increase in superficial gas velocity.

Effects of internals and distributors on the distribution and growth of bubbles in the conventional gas-solid fluidized bed

The effects of internals and gas distributors on the local dynamics of the bubbles in the conventional gas-solid fluidized bed were studied.Mesh-type internals with different opening areas(50%,70%and 90%)and different arrangements(two-layer and four-layer);and a sintered plate with a smaller pore size(1μm)and a perforated plate with a larger pore size as distributors were investigated.Differential pressure drops and local solids holdups were measured under various superficial gas velocities to compare the performances of the different types of internals and distributors.The instantaneous solids holdup signals from the optical fibre probe were used to further examine the local bubble dynamics in detail.Smaller bubbles were found,with the installation of internals or using the sintered plate,resulting in lower pressure drops and a higher bed expansion.Internals with reduced opening area or distributor with smaller pore size further leads to a higher changeover rate between the bubbles and dense phase,both axially and radially,and hence a better gas-solid contacting and an earlier transition to the turbulent flow regime of the bed.

Analysis of the energy-minimization multiscale model with multiobjective optimization

Gas-solid two-phase flow is ubiquitous in nature and many engineering fields,such as chemical engineering,energy,and mining.The closure of its hydrodynamic model is difficult owing to the complex multiscale structure of such flow.To address this problem,the energy-minimization multi-scale(EMMS)model introduces a stability condition that presents a compromise of the different dominant mechanisms involved in the systems,each expressed as an extremum tendency.However,in the physical system,each dominant mechanism should be expressed to a certain extent,and this has been formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem according to the EMMS principle generalized from the EMMS model.The mathematical properties and physical meanings of this multiobjective optimization problem have not yet been explored.This paper presents a numerical solution of this multiobjective optimization problem and discusses the correspondence between the solution characteristics and flow regimes in gas-solid fluidization.This suggests that,while the most probable flow structures may correspond to the stable states predicted by the EMMS model,the noninferior solutions are in qualitative agreement with the observable flow structures under corresponding conditions.This demonstrates that both the dominant mechanisms and stability condition proposed for the EMMS model are physically reasonable and consistent,suggesting a general approach of describing complex systems with multiple dominant mechanisms.