Liquid mean velocity and turbulence in a horizontal air-water bubbly flow

The liquid phase turbulent structure of an air-water bubbly horizontal flow in a circular pipe has been investigated experimentally. Three-dimensional measurements were implemented with two "X" type probes oriented in different planes, and local liquid-phase velocities and turbulent stresses were simultaneously obtained. Systematic measurements were conducted covering a range of local void fraction from 0 to 11.7%. The important experiment results and parametric trends are summarized and discussed.

A multichannel thermal bubble-actuated impedance flow cytometer with on-chip TIA based on CMOS-MEMS

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS)flow cytometry offers the advantages of speed,affordability,and portability in cell analysis and cytometry applications.However,the integration challenges of microfluidic and EIS read-out circuits hinder the downsizing of cytometry devices.To address this,we developed a thermal-bubble-driven impedance flow cytometric application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC).The thermal-bubble micropump avoids external piping and equipment,enabling high-throughput designs.With a total of 36 cell counting channels,each measuring 884×220μm^(2),the chip significantly enhances the throughput of flow cytometers.Each cell counting channel incorporates a differential trans-impedance amplifier(TIA)to amplify weak biosensing signals.By eliminating the parasitic parameters created at the complementary metal-oxidesemiconductor transistor(CMOS)-micro-electromechanical systems(MEMS)interface,the counting accuracy can be increased.The on-chip TIA can adjust feedback resistance from 5 to 60 kΩto accommodate solutions with different impedances.The chip effectively classifies particles of varying sizes,demonstrated by the average peak voltages of 0.0529 and 0.4510 mV for 7 and 14μm polystyrene beads,respectively.Moreover,the counting accuracies of the chip for polystyrene beads and MSTO-211H cells are both greater than 97.6%.The chip exhibits potential for impedance flow cytometer at low cost,high-throughput,and miniaturization for the application of point-of-care diagnostics.

Flow-Accelerated Corrosion in Pipe Wall Downstream of Orifice for Water and Air-Water Bubble Flows

An orifice is used widely as a flow meter or a contraction device in pipeline systems in hydro-power plants, thermal power plants, and chemical plants because of its simple construction, high reliability, and low cost. However, it is well known that flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) occurs on the pipe wall downstream of the orifice. Some of the authors have examined FAC through experimental and numerical analyses and have reported that one of the major governing parameters of FAC for single-phase water flow is the pressure fluctuation p’ on the pipe wall, and also that pipe wall thinning rate TR can be estimated by p’. In addition, they have presented the effects of the ori-fice geometry on p’ or TR, and have described a method for suppressing p’ or TR. In the present study, FAC for a two-phase air-water bubble flow is examined and compared with the single-phase water flow experimentally. Further, it is shown that because p’ is also considered a governing parameter of FAC for a two-phase air-water bubble flow, TR can be estimated using p’. It is also indicated that, by using a downstream pipe with a smaller diameter than that of the upstream pipe, p’ or TR can be suppressed.

Numerical simulation of gas–liquid flow in the bubble column using Wray–Agarwal turbulence model coupled with population balance model

In this paper,an improved computational fluid dynamic(CFD)model for gas-liquid flow in bubble column was developed using the one-equation Wary-Agarwal(WA)turbulence model coupled with the population balance model(PBM).Through 18 orthogonal test cases,the optimal combination of interfacial force models,including drag force,lift force,turbulent dispersion force.The modified wall lubrication force model was proposed to improve the predictive ability for hydrodynamic behavior near the wall of the bubble column.The values simulated by optimized CFD model were in agreement with experimental data,and the errors were within±20%.In addition,the axial velocity,turbulent kinetic energy,bubble size distribution,and the dynamic characteristic of bubble plume were analyzed at different superficial gas velocities.This research work could provide a theoretical basis for the extension of the CFD-PBM coupled model to other multiphase reactors..

Physical modelling and scale effects of air-water flows on stepped spillways

During the last three decades, the introduction of new construction materials (e.g. RCC (Roller Compacted Concrete), strengthened gabions) has increased the interest for stepped channels and spillways. However stepped chute hydraulics is not simple, because of different flow regimes and importantly because of very-strong interactions between entrained air and turbu- lence. In this study, new air-water flow measurements were conducted in two large-size stepped chute facilities with two step heights in each facility to study experimental distortion caused by scale effects and the soundness of result extrapolation to pro- totypes. Experimental data included distributions of air concentration, air-water flow velocity, bubble frequency, bubble chord length and air-water flow turbulence intensity. For a Froude similitude, the results implied that scale effects were observed in both facilities, although the geometric scaling ratio was only Lr=2 in each case. The selection of the criterion for scale effects is a critical issue. For example, major differences (i.e. scale effects) were observed in terms of bubble chord sizes and turbulence levels al- though little scale effects were seen in terms of void fraction and velocity distributions. Overall the findings emphasize that physical modelling of stepped chutes based upon a Froude similitude is more sensitive to scale effects than classical smooth-invert chute studies, and this is consistent with basic dimensional analysis developed herein.

Visualisation of air–water bubbly column flow using array Ultrasonic Velocity Profiler

In the present work, an experimental study of bubbly two-phase flow in a rectangular bubble column was performed using two ultrasonic array sensors, which can measure the instantaneous velocity of gas bubbles on multiple measurement lines. After the sound pressure distribution of sensors had been evaluated with a needle hydrophone technique, the array sensors were applied to two-phase bubble col- umn, To assess the accuracy of the measurement system with array sensors for one and two-dimensional velocity, a simultaneous measurement was performed with an optical measurement technique called particle image velocimetry （PIV）. Experimental results showed that accuracy of the measurement system with array sensors is under 10% for one-dimensional velocity profile measurement compared with PIV technique. The accuracy of the system was estimated to be under 20% along the mean flow direction in the case of two-dimensional vector mapping.

Modeling of liquid film thickness around Taylor bubbles rising in vertical stagnant and co-current slug flowing liquids

The hydrodynamic study of the liquid film around Taylor bubbles in slug flow has great significance for understanding parallel flow and interaction between Taylor bubbles.The prediction models for liquid film thickness mainly focus on stagnant flow,and some of them remain inaccurate performance.However,in the industrial process,the slug flow essentially is co-current flow.Therefore,in this paper,the liquid film thickness is studied by theoretical analysis and experimental methods under two conditions of stagnant and co-current flow.Firstly,under the condition of stagnant flow,the present work is based on Batchelor's theory,and modifies Batchelor's liquid film thickness model,which effectively improves its prediction accuracy.Under the condition of co-current flow,the prediction model of average liquid film thickness in slug flow is established by force and motion analysis.Taylor bubble length is introduced into the model as an important parameter.Dynamic experiments were carried out in the pipe with an inner diameter of 20 mm.The liquid film thickness,Taylor bubble velocity and length were measured by distributed ultrasonic sensor and intrusive cross-correlation conductivity sensor.Comparing the predicted value of the model with the measured results,the relative error is controlled within 10%.

Local Measurement of Gas-Liquid Bubbly Flow with a Double-Sensor Probe

A double-sensor probe was used to measure local interfacial parameters of a gas-liquid bubbly flow in a horizontal tube. The parameters included void fraction, interfacial concentration, bubble size distribution, bubble frequency and bubble interface velocity. The authors paid special attention to the probe design and construction for minimizing measurement errors. Measures were also taken in the design of sensor ends for preventing corrosions in the flow. This is an effort to improve the current double-sensor probe technique to meet the ever-increasing needs to local parameter measurements in gas-liquid two-phase flows.

Improved Correlation for the Volume of Bubble Formed in Air-Water System

In order to address the bubble formation and movement in air-water two-phase flow,single bubble rising in stagnant water is experimentally studied by digital image processing.Bubbles are released individually from the submerged orifices with different diameters(1.81 mm,2.07 mm,2.98 mm,3.92 mm)at different detachment frequency.Images are recorded by a high-speed video camera and processed by digital image processing technique. The factors impacting the formed volume of bubble are discussed.The experimental results showed that a threshold of gas flow rate(400 mm 3 ·s- 1)divides the bubble formation into two regimes:the constant volume regime and the growing volume regime.Especially for the growing volume regime,the surface tension is taken into account.The bubble volume is consisted of two parts:the surface tension impacting part and the gas volume flow rate impacting part.An improved correlation for bubble volume prediction is developed for the two regimes and better coincidence with the experiment data than the previous models is obtained.

Effects of bubbly flow on bending moment acting on the shaft of a gas sparged vessel stirred by a Rushton turbine

The bending moment acting on the overhung shaft of a gas-sparged vessel stirred by a Rushton turbine,as one of the results of fluid and structure interactions in stirred vessels,was measured using a moment sensor equipped with digital telemetry.An analysis of the shaft bending moment amplitude shows that the amplitude distribution of the bending moment,which indicates the elasticity nature of shaft material against bending deformation,follows the Weibull distribution.The trends of amplitude mean,standard deviation and peak deviation characteristics manifest an "S" shape versus gas flow.The "S" trend of the relative mean bending moment over gas flow rate,depending on the flow regime in gas-liquid stirred vessels,resulted from the competition among the nonuniformity of bubbly flow around the impeller,the formation of gas cavities behind the blades,and the gas direct impact on the impeller when gas is introduced.A further analysis of the bending moment power spectral density shows that the rather low frequency and speed frequency are evident.The low-frequency contribution to bending moment fluctuation peaks in the complete dispersion regime.

Insights into the hydrogen evolution reaction in vanadium redox flow batteries:A synchrotron radiation based X-ray imaging study

The parasitic hydrogen evolution reaction(HER)in the negative half-cell of vanadium redox flow batteries(VRFBs)causes severe efficiency losses.Thus,a deeper understanding of this process and the accompanying bubble formation is crucial.This benchmarking study locally analyzes the bubble distribution in thick,porous electrodes for the first time using deep learning-based image segmentation of synchrotron X-ray micro-tomograms.Each large three-dimensional data set was processed precisely in less than one minute while minimizing human errors and pointing out areas of increased HER activity in VRFBs.The study systematically varies the electrode potential and material,concluding that more negative electrode potentials of-200 m V vs.reversible hydrogen electrode(RHE)and lower cause more substantial bubble formation,resulting in bubble fractions of around 15%–20%in carbon felt electrodes.Contrarily,the bubble fractions stay only around 2%in an electrode combining carbon felt and carbon paper.The detected areas with high HER activity,such as the border subregion with more than 30%bubble fraction in carbon felt electrodes,the cutting edges,and preferential spots in the electrode bulk,are potential-independent and suggest that larger electrodes with a higher bulk-to-border ratio might reduce HER-related performance losses.The described combination of electrochemical measurements,local X-ray microtomography,AI-based segmentation,and 3D morphometric analysis is a powerful and novel approach for local bubble analysis in three-dimensional porous electrodes,providing an essential toolkit for a broad community working on bubble-generating electrochemical systems.

Characteristics of air-water flow in an emptying tank under different conditions

This paper experimentally studied the features of air-water flow during the emptying of a water-filled prismatic tank with a bottom orifice under different conditions.The experiments were conducted with both circular and elliptical orifices,with and without ventilation.The evolution of bubbles,water pressure variation,and water level change with time were recorded in the experiments and analyzed.Based on the results,the evolution of bubbles could be mainly divided into three stages of formation,deformation,and decomposition.Ventilation was found important to the emptying process,with which the drainage efficiency was much higher than that under the unventilated condition.Additionally,under the unventilated condition,the drainage efficiency with the circular orifice was slightly higher than that with the elliptical orifice.

A Comparative Study of Closure Relations for CFD Modelling of Bubbly Flow in a Vertical Pipe

Commercial code CFX was used to examine the performance of a two-fluid model to predict the details of upward isothermal bubbly flow of air and water in a vertical pipe. The model equations are volume-averaged Navier-Stokes equations that require closure models for interfacial forces and bubble-induced turbulence effects. Two-equation SST and k-epsilon RANS turbulence models were also used. A parametric study of closure models included both standard options in CFX and previously published novel closure models that were implemented with user-defined functions. The CFD simulations were compared with two cases from the MTLoop experiments by Lucas et al. at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf: one with wall-peak void fraction profile (MT039), and another with a core-peak void fraction profile (MT118). The effect of changing the drag force closures was not significant for the set examined. Poor predictions were found when the lift force and wall lubrication models were incompatible in magnitude. There was no significant effect of changing the liquid phase turbulence model. Changing the bubble-induced turbulence models, however, had a significant impact on the radial void fraction profile. The novel wall force from Lubchenko et al. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology significantly improved the prediction of the near wall void fraction in the wall peak profile.

Phase distribution in horizontal gas-liquid two-phase bubbly flow

An investigation on phase distribution in air-water two-phase flow in horizontal circular channel was conducted by using the double-sensor resistivity probe.The variations of phase distribution with variations of gas and liquid volumetric fluxes were analyzed and the present data were compared with some of other researcher’s data and existing models. It was found there exists more complicated phase distribution pattern in horizontal flow system than in vertical flow. The radial local void fraction profiles are similar at the same measurement angle with various gas and liquid flow rates. However, an asymmetric profile can be observed at a given slice of the pipe cross-section.

Analysis of deformation and internal flow patterns for rising single bubbles in different liquids

Gas–liquid multiphase flow is a significant phenomenon in chemical processes. The rising behaviors of single bubbles in the quiescent liquids have been investigated but the internal flow patterns and deformation rules of bubbles, which influence the mass transfer efficiency to a large extent, have received much less attention. In this paper, the volume of fluid method was used to calculate the bubble shapes, pressure, velocity distributions,and the flow patterns inside the bubbles. The rising behavior of the bubbles with four different initial diameters,i.e., 3 mm, 5 mm, 7 mm and 9 mm was investigated in four various liquids including water, 61.23% glycerol,86.73% glycerol and 100% glycerol. The results show that the liquid properties and bubble initial diameters have great impacts on bubble shapes. Moreover, flow patterns inside the bubbles with different initial diameters were analyzed and classified into three types under the condition of different bubble shapes. Three correlations for predicting the maximum internal circulation inside the bubbles in 86.73% glycerol were presented and the R-square values were all bigger than 0.98. Through analyzing the pressure and velocity distributions around the bubbles, four rules of bubble deformation were also obtained to explain and predict the shapes.

Study on the Flow Field around Two Parallel Moving Bubbles and Interaction Between Bubbles Rising in CMC Solutions by PIV

The flow fields surrounding two parallel moving bubbles rising from two identical orifices submerged in non-Newtonian fluid of carboxymethylcellulose （CMC） solution of three different mass concentration were measured experimentally by the use of particle image velocimetry （PIV）. The influences of gas flowrate, solution mass concentration, orifice interval and the angle between two bubble centers line and vertical direction on the flow field surrounding bubbles were discussed respectively by analyzing the velocity vector, velocity contours as well as individual velocity components. The results show that the liquid velocity both in front of two bubbles and behind increases with gas flowrate duo to shear-thinning effect of previous bubbles, whereas decreases with the increase of CMC concentration due to the increase of drag force acting on bubbles. The effect of the orifice interval on the flow field around two moving bubbles becomes gradually obvious as the interval becomes closer. Moreover, two adjacent side-by-side bubbles repulse each other during rising, leading to the practical interval between them increased somewhat above the orifice interval. When the distance between bubbles is less than the orifice interval 10 mm, the interaction between two neighboring bubbles changed from mutual repellence to attraction with the decrease of the angle of the line of linking two bubble centers to the vertical direction.

The Effect of Sparger Geometry on Gas Bubble Flow Behaviors Using Electrical Resistance Tomography

By electrical resistance tomography (ERT) the cross sectional profiles of gas hold-up in a φ56mm bubble column are obtained with four designs of gas sparger. The effect of sparger geometry on the bubble distribution is re-vealed by applying a sensitivity conjugated gradients reconstruction method (SCG). Experimental results show that over-all hold-up obtained by ERT is generally in good agreement with those measured with the pressure transducer and the ERT system produces informative evidence that the radial profiles of hold-up is very similar to the sparger design in the lower section of bubble column. Meanwhile, the rise velocity of bubble swarm and the Sauter mean bubble size are evaluated using ERT based on dynamic gas disengagement theory. The experimental results are in good agreement with correlations and conventional estimation obtained using pressure transmitter methods.

Experimental detection of bubble-wall interactions in a vertical gas–liquid flow

Bubble motions and bubble-wall interactions in stagnant liquid were experimentally investigated by high-speed CCD and PIV technique with the main feature parameters such as E?tv?s numbers Eo = 0.98–1.10, Morton number Mo = 3.21 × 10^(-9)and Reynolds numbers Re = 180 ~ 190. The effect of bubble injecting frequency and the distance S between the gas injection nozzle and the wall on the statistical trajectory of bubbles, average velocity distribution of flow field and Reynolds shear stress were studied in detail. It was shown that the combination of bubble injecting frequency and the distance S caused different bubble motion forms and hydrodynamic characteristics.When the normalized initial distance was very little, like S*≈ 1.2(here S*= 2S/d_e, and deis the bubble equivalent diameter), bubbles ascended in a zigzag trajectory with alternant structure of high and low speed flow field around the bubbles, and the distribution of positive and negative Reynolds shear stress looked like a blob. With the increase of distance S*, bubbles' trajectory would tend to be smooth and straight from the zigzag curve. Meanwhile, with the increase of bubble injecting frequency, the camber of bubble trajectory at 20<y<60 mm had a slight increase due to the inhibitory effect from the vertical wall. Under larger spacing, such as S*≈ 3.6, the low-frequency bubbles gradually moved away from the vertical plane wall in a straight trajectory and the high-frequency bubbles gradually moved close to the vertical wall in a similar straight trajectory after an unstable camber motion. Under the circumstances, high-speed fluid was mainly distributed in the region between the wall and the bubbles, while the relative large Reynolds shear stress mainly existed in the region far away from the wall.

Effects of Orifice Orientation and Gas-Liquid Flow Pattern on Initial Bubble Size

In many gasliquid processes, the initial bubble size is determined by a series of operation parameters along with the sparger design and gasliquid flow pattern. Bubble formation models for variant gasliquid flow pat terns have been developed based on force balance. The effects of the orientation of gasliquid flow, gas velocity, liquid velocity and orifice diameter on the initial bubble size have been clarified. In ambient airwater system, thesultable gasllquid flow pattern is important to obtain smaller bubbles under the low velocity liquid crossflow con ditions with stainless steel spargers. Among the four types of gasliquid flow patterns discussed, the horizontal orifice in a vertically upward liquid flow produces the smallest initial bubbles. However the orientation effects of gas and liquid flow are found tobe insgnifican whenliq.uid velocity is.higher than. 3.2 m;sa or theorifice diameter is small enough.

AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON TURBULENT COHERENT STRUCTURES NEAR A SHEARED AIR-WATER INTERFACE

The turbulence structures near a sheared air-water interface were experimentally investigated with the hydrogen bubble visualization technique. Surface shear was imposed by an airflow over the water flow which was kept free from surface waves. Results show that the wind shear has the main influence on coherent structures under air-water interfaces. Low- and high- speed streaks form in the region close to the interface as a result of the imposed shear stress. When a certain airflow velocity is reached, “turbulent spots” appear randomly at low-speed streaks with some characteristics of hairpin vortices. At even higher shear rates, the flow near the interface is dominated primarily by intermittent bursting events. The coherent structures observed near sheared air-water interfaces show qualitative similarities with those occurring in near-wall turbulence. However, a few distinctive phenomena were also observed, including the fluctuating thickness of the instantaneous boundary layer and vertical vortices in bursting processes, which appear to be associated with the characteristics of air-water interfaces.