Influence of the Liquid Phase Physical Properties on the Void Fraction at the Inlet of a Full‐Lift Safety Valve

Abstract

AbstractThis work studies the influence of the physical properties of a liquid on the void fraction at the inlet of a corner valve resembling a full‐lift safety valve. The test media are mixtures of air and aqueous solutions of glycerin. Our own measurements evince a reduction in the void fraction when the relative weight of glycerin in the solution is increased. If the effects of density, viscosity, and surface tension on the void fraction are accounted for by increasing the relative weight of glycerin in the solution, it results that the observed reduction of the void fraction is primarily a consequence of the enhancement of viscosity. On the other hand, the increment of the liquid density is responsible for a modest increase in the void fraction and the effect of the reduction in the surface tension is almost negligible. The enhancement of either the density or the viscosity of the liquid phase increases the relative velocity of the gas in the two‐phase mixture and, therefore, the slip. The impact of the liquid properties on the void fraction in co‐current vertical pipe flows is similar to that at the inlet of the corner valve. Among the most common correlations for pipe flows, the formulation of Rouhani and the homogeneous void fraction accurately reproduce the void fraction at the inlet of the valve only for two‐phase flows with liquids of low viscosity. A new void fraction correlation is proposed here, which reproduces all measurements very well and correctly predicts the impact of the liquid phase properties. Despite numerical coefficients, which can be fitted to additional sets of measurements, the structure of the new correlation is also applicable outside the range of two‐phase flows for which it has been explicitly validated.