Pressure drop and flow pattern of slush nitrogen in a horizontal pipe

Abstract

Slush nitrogen is a mixture of solid nitrogen particles and liquid nitrogen, and its flow characteristics in a horizontal pipe are investigated experimentally and theoretically in this study. Pressure drop of slush nitrogen is higher than that of subcooled liquid nitrogen due to the viscous and the mechanical frictions, and the dependence of pressure drop on the mean velocity varies under different flow conditions. The solid volume fraction distributions and the velocity throughout the pipe cross‐section of slush nitrogen flow are investigated with the Eulerian–Eulerian multiphase approach incorporated with the kinetic theory of granular flow. The flow patterns of slush nitrogen are determined as the pseudo‐homogeneous flow, the heterogeneous flow and the bedload flow from the experimental and numerical results. The relationship between the friction factor and the Reynolds number for slush nitrogen with various solid volume fractions is obtained by using the slush Reynolds number. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 1762–1773, 2013