Estimating gas holdup via pressure difference measurements in a cocurrent bubble column

Abstract

Estimating gas holdup via pressure difference measurements is a simple and low-cost non-invasive technique to study gas holdup in bubble columns. It is usually used in a manner where the wall shear stress effect is neglected, termed Method II in this paper. In cocurrent bubble columns, when the liquid velocity is high or the fluid is highly viscous, wall shear stress may be significant and Method II may result in substantial error. Directly including the wall shear stress term in the determination of gas holdup (Method I) requires knowledge of two-phase wall shear stress models and usually requires the solution of non-linear equations. A new gas holdup estimation method (Method III) via differential pressure measurements for cocurrent bubble columns is proposed in this paper. This method considers the wall shear stress influences on gas holdup values without calculating the wall shear stress. A detailed analysis shows that Method III always results in a smaller gas holdup error than Method II, and in many cases, the error is significantly smaller than that of Method II. The applicability of Method III in measuring gas holdup in a cocurrent air–water–fiber bubble column is examined. Analysis based on experimental data shows that with Method III, accurate gas holdup measurements can be obtained, while measurement error is significant when Method II is used for some operational conditions.