Evaluation of interfacial area transport models for horizontal bubbly flow

Conference · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2016

OSTI ID:22977515

Kong, Ran; Kim, Seungjin ^[1]; Bajorek, Stephen; Tien, Kirk; Hoxie, Chris ^[2]

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1. Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 230 Reber Building, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
2. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission,11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852 (United States)

This paper presents evaluation results of interfacial area transport equation (IATE) for horizontal air-water bubbly flow. The steady-state one-dimensional, one-group IATE for adiabatic air-water bubbly flow developed by Talley [1] is employed in the current evaluation study. The models evaluated include: (a) drift-flux-based closure relations for void-weighted bubble velocity and void fraction; (b) frictional pressure drop model based on the Lockhart-Martinelli approach; (c) bubble interaction mechanisms; and (d) covariance associated with asymmetric bubble distribution in horizontal two-phase flow. In order to evaluate the models, a local two-phase flow database obtained by the four-sensor conductivity probe in fourteen different test conditions is employed, which covers a wide range of flow conditions in horizontal bubbly flow regime, with superficial liquid and gas velocities ranging from 3.50-6.00 m/s and 0.09- 1.00 m/s, respectively. It is demonstrated that both the void weighted bubble velocity and void fraction are predicted well with an average percent difference of ±2.7%. The fictional pressure loss can be predicted with an average percent difference of ±1.12%. The covariance parameters calculated from the modeling approach generally compare well with those calculated from experimental data within ±20% difference. It is found that the IATE generally predicts the measured interfacial area concentration with an average percent difference of ±5.7%. Furthermore, the effect of liquid velocity on individual bubble interaction mechanisms is investigated. It is found that both the contributions of random collision and turbulent impact decrease as liquid velocity decreases. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society - ANS, Thermal Hydraulics Division, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22977515
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
BUBBLES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONCENTRATION RATIO
LIQUIDS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
PRESSURE DROP
SENSORS
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
TRANSPORT THEORY
TWO-PHASE FLOW
VOID FRACTION
VOIDS