Gas-liquid two-phase flow in a horizontal channel under nonlinear oscillation: Flow regime, frictional pressure drop and void fraction

Abstract

This paper presents experiments carried out to study the effects of nonlinear oscillation on horizontal gas-liquid two-phase flow. The experiments considered the nonlinear oscillation over a wide range of vibration parameters. Flow regime, transition boundary, frictional pressure drop and void fraction were measured using a high-speed camera, pressure sensor and electrical impedance. Six typical flow regimes were observed. The frictional pressure drop and void fraction in steady state and nonlinear oscillation were compared. It found that the traditional predictive correlations for frictional pressure drop were accurate and matched the measured frictional pressure drop closely. On the other hand, the prediction performance of selected void fraction correlations based on three typical models was below par for the experimental conditions chosen in this paper. We further showed that predicted correlations based on flow regime could estimate measured void fraction reasonably well.