Experimental investigation of pressure drop of air-water two-phase flow through open-cell metal foam

Abstract

The thermal and hydraulic characteristics of single-phase flow through a porous media have long been studied, but knowledge of two-phase flow through porous media is limited. In this work, experiments were performed to measure the pressure drops of single-phase and two-phase flows through metal foams with various pore sizes. Some previous empirical correlations for single-phase flow showed good agreement with the experimental data, whereas a large discrepancy appeared between empirical correlations and experimental data for two-phase flow. Considering slip between two phases, a new two-phase multiplier correlation was developed to predict the pressure drop of a two-phase flow through porous media. The new correlation showed agreement with the present experimental data within a deviation of 9%. The new correlation also predicted a wider range of experimental data available in the open literature with less than 30% deviation.