A Novel Method for Determining the Void Fraction in Gas-Liquid Multi-Phase Systems Using a Dynamic Conductivity Probe

Conventional conductivity methods for measuring the void fraction in gas-liquid multiphase systems are typically affected by accuracy problems due to the presence of fluid flow and salinity.This study presents a novel approach for determining the void fraction based on a reciprocating dynamic conductivity probe used to measure the liquid film thickness under forced annular-flow conditions.The measurement system comprises a cyclone,a conductivity probe,a probe reciprocating device,and a data acquisition and processing system.This method ensures that the flow pattern is adjusted to a forced annular flow,thereby minimizing the influence of complex and variable gas-liquid flow patterns on the measurement results;Moreover,it determines the liquid film thickness solely according to circuit connectivity rather than specific conductivity values,thereby mitigating the impact of salinity.The reliability of the measurement system is demonstrated through laboratory experiments.The experimental results indicate that,in a range of gas phase superficial velocities 5–20 m/s and liquid phase superficial velocities 0.079–0.48 m/s,the maximum measurement deviation for the void fraction is 4.23%.

Void Fraction Distributions in Cold-gassed and Hot-sparged Three Phase Stirred Tanks with Multi-impeller

Vertical distributions of void fraction in gas-liquid and gas-liquid-solid stirred tanks have been measured in a fully baffled dished base vessel of 0.48 m diameter, using a conductivity probe. The impeller configuration （a hollow half elliptical blade dispersing turbine below two up-pumping wide blade hydrofoils, identified as HEDT＋2WHu） recommended in previous work has been used in this work. The operating temperatures were 24℃ and 81℃, identified as cold and hot respectively. The effects of superficial gas velocity, agitator speed and the corresponding power input on the local void fraction in two-phase systems are .investigated and discussed. Results show thatth-e increasing of agitator speed or gas flow rate leads to an increase in local-void fraction at the majority of measurement points in both cold and hot systems. However, the unifo,rmity of gas dispersion does not always in crease as the raising of agitator speed and power input. In either cold or hot sparged conditions, the two- and three-phase systems.have similar vertical profiles for void fraction, with maxima in similar locations; however, the void fractions are significantly lower in hot sparging than with cold. In cold operation the presence of particles leads to a lower void fraction at most points, although the local void fractions increase a little with the addition of solid particles at high temperature, in good agreement with the global gas holdup results, and the possible reasons are discussed in this paper. This work can give a better understanding of the differences between cold-gassed and hot-sparged three phase＇stirred tanks.

Testing of NAPL simulator to predict migration of a light nonaqueous phase liquid(LNAPL) under water table fluctuation in a sandy medium

Nanoqueous phase liquid(NAPL) simulator is a powerful and popular mathematical model for modeling the flow and transport of non-aqueous phase liquids in subsurface,but the testing of its feasibility under water table fluctuation has received insufficient attention.The feature in a column test was tested through two cycles of water table fluctuation.The sandy medium in the column was initially saturated,and each cycle of water table fluctuation consisted of one water table falling and one rising,resulting in a drainage and an imbibition of the medium,respectively.It was found that the difference between the simulated and measured results in the first drainage of the column test was minor.However,with the propagation of the water table fluctuations,the simulation errors increased,and the simulation accuracy was not acceptable except for the first drainage in the two fluctuation cycles.The main reason was proved to be the estimation method of residual saturation used in this simulator.Also,based on the column tests,it was assumed that the resulting residual saturation from an incomplete imbibition process was a constant,with a value equal to that of the residual value resulting from the main imbibition process.The results obtained after modifying NAPL simulator with this assumption were found to be more accurate in the first cycle of water table fluctuation,but this accuracy decreased rapidly in the second one.It is concluded that NAPL simulator is not adequate in the case of LNAPL migration under water table fluctuation in sandy medium,unless a feasible assumption to estimate residual saturation is put forward.

Prediction of curved oil–water interface in horizontal pipes using modified model with dynamic contact angle

In this study,interface shapes of horizontal oil–water two-phase flow are predicted by using Young-Laplace equation model and minimum energy model.Meanwhile,the interface shapes of horizontal oil–water twophase flow in a 20 mm inner diameter pipe are measured by a novel conductance parallel-wire array probe(CPAP).It is found that,for flow conditions with low water holdup,there is a large deviation between the model-predicted interface shape and the experimentally measured one.Since the variation of pipe wetting characteristics in the process of fluid flow can lead to the changes of the contact angle between the fluid and the pipe wall,the models mentioned above are modified by considering dynamic contact angle.The results indicate that the interface shapes predicted by the modified models present a good consistence with the ones measured by CPAP.

The Measurement of Thermal Conductivities of Silica and Carbon Black Powders at Different Pressures by Thermal Conductivity Probe

This investigation was done to study the gas filled powder insulation and thermal conductivity probe for the measurement of thermal conductivity of powders.The mathematical analysis showed that the heat capacity of the probe itself and the thermal resistance between the probe and powder must be considered.The authors developed a slender probe and measured the effective thermal conductivity of silica and carbon black powders under a variety of conditions.

Experimental study on bubble behavior and CFD simulation of large-scale slurry bubble column reactor

Slurry bubble column reactors(SBCR)is a three-phase fluidized reactor with outstanding advantages compared with other reactors and is difficult to scale-up due to lack of information on hydrodynamics and mass transfer over a wide range of operating conditions of commercial interest.In this paper,an experiment was conducted to investigate the bubble behavior in SBCR with a height of 5600 mm and an interior diameter of 480 mm.Bubble rise velocity,bubble diameter,and gas holdup in different radial and axial positions are measured in SBCR using four-channel conductivity probe.Tap water,air,and glass beads(mean diameter 75-150μm)are used as liquid,gas,and solid phases,respectively.It shows that hydrodynamic parameters have good regularity in SBCR.Moreover,a commercial computational fluid dynamics(CFD)package,Fluent,was used to simulate the process in SBCR.The simulations were carried out using axi-symmetric 2-D grids.Data obtained from experiment and CFD simulation are compared,and results show that the tendency of simulation is almost uniform with the experiment,which can help to obtain further understanding about multiphase flow process and establish a model about the synthesis of alcohol ether fuel in SBCR.

New measurements on hydrodynamics in a gas-liquid-solid expanded bed

The solid holdup,in a 150 mm-ID×2460 mm-height gas-liquid-solid expanded bed with air,water and glass beads(the diameter of particles is 0.6-0.8 mm)was firstly investigated based on the immersion-type online multiphase measuring instrument,and bubble behavior was studied via the BVW-2 double electrical conductivity probe.The effect of the superficial gas velocity and liquid velocity on the expanded ratio,the transition ratio,the bubble rising velocity,the gas holdup and the solid holdup was studied.It is discovered that compared with the gas velocity,the liquid velocity has stronger impact on the expanded ratio,but it is opposite for the transition ratio.The average gas holdup and solid holdup increase linearly as the superficial gas velocity goes up.Among it,the gas holdup increases greater in the center,while the solid holdup increases greater near the wall.Compared with it,when the superficial liquid velocity rises,the average gas holdup hardly changes,but the average solid holdup keeps decreasing,especially the solid holdup distributes flatter with the increase of the superficial liquid velocity.