Effects of Reduced Gravity Conditions on Bubble Dispersion Characteristics in the Bubble Column

Abstract

Bubble-liquid turbulent flow has an excellent heat and mass transfer behaviors than single gas or liquid flow. In order to analyze the effects of normal and reduced gravity on cold bubble-liquid two-phase turbulent flow in bubble column a second-order moment cold bubble-liquid two-phase turbulent model was developed to disclose the bubble dispersion characteristics. Under the reduced gravity condition, volume fraction caused by the decrease of buoyance force is larger than normal gravity level due to bigger bubble solid volume. In addition, bubble frequency is also decreased by in decrease of buoyance force. Normal and shear stresses have strongly anisotropic characteristics at every directions and have larger values under normal gravity than reduced gravity. The liquid turbulent kinetic energy has the two-peak bimodal distribution and weaker than bubble turbulent kinetic energy with one peak unimodal, which is caused by vigorous wake fluctuations. The correlation of fluctuation velocities between bubble and liquid has clearly anisotropic behaviors Under reduced gravity, the bubble motion has a little impact on liquid turbulent flow caused by slight buoyancy force, however, it will greatly reduce the liquid turbulent intensity due to energy cascade transport, which was transformed into bubbles or dissipated by interface friction. Bubble formation and detachment mechanisms affected by gravity conditions lead to the different levels of bubble dispersion distributions.