Experimental setup for researching the stability of fluid flow

Abstract

The problem of studying the stability of the flow of a thermoviscous liquid is relevant in connection with the need to develop methods for controlling flow regimes in industrial condensers and heat exchange devices. These devices play an important role in a variety of technological processes, from food production to materials processing, and their effectiveness is directly dependent on the flow regime they establish. Awareness of the importance of both laminar and turbulent flow regimes leads to the need to balance between energy efficiency, which is often preferable to laminar flow, and heat and mass transfer efficiency, which is characteristic of turbulent flow. This makes it important to study and control the stability of the flow. As the speed of fluid flow increases, laminar flow loses stability and disturbances arise, which can lead to the formation of a secondary nonlinear regime that preserves the main characteristics of laminar flow, or to flow turbulization, which in turn can have a significant impact on the efficiency of technical devices. Although a lot of work has been done to study the stability of the flow of homogeneous liquids in channels and their spectral characteristics, the importance of taking temperature differences into account is often overlooked. However, it is the dependence of liquid viscosity on temperature that plays a significant role in determining flow patterns and requires additional study. Despite the ongoing numerical studies of the stability of fluid flow, there remains a need to compare experimental data with the results of numerical modeling to obtain a more complete understanding of the processes occurring in the system. In this regard, within the framework of this work, an experimental setup of an annular channel was developed and assembled in order to conduct a detailed experimental study of the stability of fluid flow and subsequently compare the results obtained with numerical simulations, which will provide more accurate data for further improving the design and operation of industrial devices.