Air-water two-phase flow in a 3-mm horizontal tube

Abstract

Two-phase flow pattern and friction characteristics for air-water flow in a 3.17 mm smooth tube are reported in this study. The range of air-water mass flux is between 50 to 700 kg/m2⋅s and gas quality is between 0.0001 to 0.9. The pressure drop data are analyzed using the concept of the two-phase frictional multipliers and the Martinelli parameter. Experimental data show that the two-phase friction multipliers are strongly related to the flow pattern. Taitel & Dukler flow regime map fails to predict the stratified flow pattern data. Their transition lines between annular-wavy and annular-intermittent give fair agreement with data. A modified correlation from Klimenko and Fyodoros criterion is able to distinguish the annular and stratified data. For two-phase flow in small tubes, the effect of surface tension force should be significantly present as compared to gravitational force. The tested empirical frictional correlations couldn’t predict the pressure drop in small tubes for various working fluids. It is suggested to correlate a reliable frictional multiplier for small horizontal tubes from a large database of various working fluids, and to develop the flow pattern dependent models for the prediction of two-phase pressure drop in small tubes.