Evaluation of typical interfacial area transport models for bubbly flow

Abstract

Interfacial area concentration is one of the most important parameters in two-phase flow. This parameter also reflects the interfacial area of mass, momentum and energy transfer in two-fluid model. The prediction of interfacial area concentration is essential to close the interfacial transfer terms in the two-fluid model. For the modeling of the one-dimensional interfacial area transport equation for adiabatic bubbly flow, existing typical sink and source terms have been reviewed and evaluated by the experimental data of vertical pipes and rod bundles. The interactive mechanisms of bubbles and turbulent eddies have also been analyzed, including bubbles breakup and bubbles coalescence. The evaluation results show the interfacial area transport model of Hibiki and Ishii (Liu and Hibiki) can provide the most accurate prediction of interfacial area concentration for pipes with the relative error of 8.22% for bubbly flow. Their model has also been evaluated by the experiment data of rod bundle with the relative error of 21.89% for bubbly flow.