Abstract
The impacts of the entrained droplet size on the pressure drop and heat transfer in annular flow cannot be ignored. However, literature data on the droplet size for higher liquid viscosities are lacking. This paper presents an in-depth study on the characteristics of droplets in annular flow in a 50-mm-inner-diameter vertical pipe, conducted using a particle dynamic analyzer. Afterwards, the effects of variation in the liquid viscosity from 1 to 30 mPa·s on the droplet size distribution, droplet aggregation and breakup are obtained. The results show that the droplet diameter increases logarithmically with increasing liquid viscosity, first rapidly and then slowly. The initially entrained droplets experience different dynamic events in gas core under different liquid viscosities. Moreover, a new correlation for the Sauter mean diameter of the droplets is proposed via improved numerical fitting of data with higher liquid viscosity, which can be applied to a wider liquid viscosity range.
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