Abstract
The complex wave structure of annular gas–liquid flow with disturbance waves and liquid entrainment is a result of the evolution of high-frequency initial waves, appearing at the very inlet of the flow, prior to the hydrodynamic stabilization of liquid film. This stage of flow evolution is studied experimentally, using a shadow technique, and theoretically, using a linear stability analysis of the Orr–Sommerfeld equation in both phases. The present work is focused on the comparison of earlier results obtained in air–water downward flow with the new results obtained in upward flow and with more viscous liquids. The flow orientation affects the shape of the liquid film prior to stabilization; the initial film area is thicker but shorter in upward flow. Upward flow orientation also leads to a lower frequency and the increment of growth of initial waves. The viscosity effect is found to be weak if flow rates of both phases are the same. The model is mostly able to reproduce the qualitative trends, but the quantitative agreement is not reached. Experimental observations indicate that the liquid flow within the initial area is significantly different from the stabilized flow of gas-sheared liquid film, which is used in the model. This difference could explain the discrepancy; further development of the model should be aimed at taking into account the evolution of the velocity profile inside the liquid film during the stage of hydrodynamic stabilization.
Highlights
An annular flow pattern is observed when a gas–liquid mixture with a high fraction of gas phase flows in a duct
The dispersed phase consists of liquid droplets torn from the film surface and entrained into the gas core, and the gas bubbles are entrapped by the liquid film
The results described above were obtained for downward air–water annular flow
Summary
An annular flow pattern is observed when a gas–liquid mixture with a high fraction of gas phase flows in a duct. The properties of the waves are affected by many other parameters, such as duct shape [5] and hydraulic diameter [6,7,8], flow orientation [9], liquid viscosity [10,11] and surface tension [12,13,14], gas density [15,16,17], etc. A disturbance wave should be modeled starting from an infinitesimal perturbation near the inlet, passing through all the stages of evolution observed in the experiments. Very close to the inlet, the film surface is smooth; high-frequency initial waves appear here and grow in amplitude as they propagate downstream. We investigate the effect of flow orientation by comparing the initial waves in upwards and downwards flows and the effect of liquid viscosity by using water–glycerol solutions as working liquids
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