Liquid film thickness of two‐phase slug flows in capillary microchannels: A review paper

Author(s):  
Amin Etminan ◽  
Yuri S. Muzychka ◽  
Kevin Pope
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Kanno ◽  
Youngbae Han ◽  
Yusuke Saito ◽  
Naoki Shikazono

Heat transfer in micro scale two-phase flow attracts large attention since it can achieve large heat transfer area per density. At high quality, annular flow becomes one of the major flow regimes in micro two-phase flow. Heat is transferred by evaporation or condensation of the liquid film, which are the dominant mechanisms of micro scale heat transfer. Therefore, liquid film thickness is one of the most important parameters in modeling the phenomena. In macro tubes, large numbers of researches have been conducted to investigate the liquid film thickness. However, in micro tubes, quantitative information for the annular liquid film thickness is still limited. In the present study, annular liquid film thickness is measured using a confocal method, which is used in the previous study [1, 2]. Glass tubes with inner diameters of 0.3, 0.5 and 1.0 mm are used. Degassed water and FC40 are used as working fluids, and the total mass flux is varied from G = 100 to 500 kg/m2s. Liquid film thickness is measured by laser confocal displacement meter (LCDM), and the liquid-gas interface profile is observed by a high-speed camera. Mean liquid film thickness is then plotted against quality for different flow rates and tube diameters. Mean thickness data is compared with the smooth annular film model of Revellin et al. [3]. Annular film model predictions overestimated the experimental values especially at low quality. It is considered that this overestimation is attributed to the disturbances caused by the interface ripples.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huacheng Zhang ◽  
Tutomo Hisano ◽  
Shoji Mori ◽  
Hiroyuki Yoshida

Abstract Annular gas-liquid two-phase flows, such as the flows attached to the fuel rods of boiling water reactors (BWR), are a prevalent occurrence in industrial processes. At the gas-liquid interface of such flows, disturbance waves with diverse velocity and amplitude commonly arise. Since the thin liquid film between two successive disturbance waves leads to the dryout on the heating surface and limits the performance of the BWRs, complete knowledge of the disturbance waves is of great importance for the characterized properties of disturbance waves. The properties of disturbance waves have been studied by numerous researchers through extensive experimental and analytical approaches. However, most of the experimental data and analyses available in the literature are limited to the near atmospheric condition. In consideration of the properties of liquids and gases under atmospheric pressure which are distinct from those under BWR operating conditions (7 MPa, 285 °C), we employed the HFC134a gas and liquid ethanol whose properties at relatively low pressure and temperature (0.7 MPa, 40 °C) are similar to those of steam and water under BWR operating conditions as working fluids in a tubular test section having an inside diameter 5.0mm. Meanwhile, the liquid film thickness is measured by conductance probes. In this study, we report the liquid film thickness characteristics in a two-phase HFC134a gas-liquid ethanol flow. A simple model of the height of a disturbance wave was also proposed.


2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
E. Nogueira ◽  
B. D. Dantas ◽  
R. M. Cotta

In a gas-liquid annular two-phase flow one of the main factors influencing the determination of heat transfer rates is the average thickness of the liquid film. A model to accurately represent the heat transfer in such situations has to be able of determining the average liquid film thickness to within a reasonable accuracy. A typical physical aspect in gas-liquid annular flows is the appearance of interface waves, which affect heat, mass and momentum transfers. Existing models implicitly consider the wave effects in the momentum transfer by an empirical correlation for the interfacial friction factor. However, this procedure does not point out the difference between interface waves and the natural turbulent effects of the system. In the present work, the wave and mass transfer effects in the theoretical estimation of average liquid film thickness are analyzed, in comparison to a model that does not explicitly include these effects, as applied to the prediction of heat transfer rates in a thermally developing flow situation.


Author(s):  
Peng Ju ◽  
Xiaohong Yang ◽  
Joshua P. Schlegel ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Takashi Hibiki ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Christian Bolesch ◽  
Lukas Robers ◽  
Robert Zboray ◽  
Horst-Michael Prasser

For the BWRs, the dryout margin is one of the core design limitation factors. Today’s industry standard is to use a large margin to dryout and functional spacer grids with vanes to enhance the heat transfer and to reduce the fraction of entrained droplets. Difficulties for precise measurements under reactor conditions lead to a lack of knowledge on the exact effects of the spacers on the flow and suggest the use of scaled experiments. For this experiment, the goal is to provide high-resolution data for CFD code validation as well as visualizing the effects of functional spacers and the liquid film and potentially the dryout front. The Dryout Tomography Experiment (DoToX) facility at ETH Zürich is a closed loop experiment for two-phase flow investigations in a fuel bundle model using a modelling fluid. Key aspects are a single undisturbed subchannel and the surrounding four heating rods containing a liquid heating system. This setup allows for a steady state dryout without endangering the structural integrity of the facility and for the 3D reconstruction of the time averaged void distribution within the flow channel by means of an X-Ray and cold neutron Computer Tomography (CT). In this study we pay special attention to the annular flow in the upper half of the sub channel. We investigate the first results delivered by the facility. Prototypical spacer designs available in the open literature were used. We present the Liquid Film Thickness (LFT) distributions on the walls of the heating rods. Improvements towards the dryout performance as well as drawbacks of the specified spacer design are highlighted.


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