Analysis on flow resistance of two-phase ice slurry in pulsating flow

Abstract

The pulsating flow plays a potential role in improving the heat transfer performance of ice slurry. However, the flow resistance characteristics of ice slurry in pulsating flow have not been fully understood. Therefore, the pulsating flow behavior of ice slurry is numerically investigated using the Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model in the present study. The results showed that there is a phase lag between face-averaged velocity and pressure drop of ice slurry under pulsating flow, which changes from 0 to π/2. The phase lag increases with the increase of pulsating frequency, inlet ice volume fraction and pipe diameter. The instantaneous frictional resistance coefficient of ice slurry can be divided into two stages including acceleration and deceleration, which is larger than that at steady state in accelerating process and smaller than that at steady state in decelerating process. The cycle-averaged frictional resistance coefficient at low Reynolds number is obviously greater than that at steady state, while it is closer to the steady-state value at high Reynolds number. And the cycle-averaged frictional resistance coefficient increases with increasing the pulsating velocity amplitude, dimensionless frequency and inlet ice volume fraction. The pipe diameter has a significant influence on the cycle-averaged frictional resistance coefficient at low Reynolds number. In addition, the correlation is formed from the numerical results to predict the cycle-averaged frictional resistance coefficient of ice slurry.