Effect of channel height on performance of two-phase flow in miniand microchannels with a T-mixer
F.V. Ronshin1,2, Yu.A. Dementiev1,2, D.Yu. Kochkin1, E.A. Chinnov1,2
1Kutateladze Institute of Thermophysics SB RAS, Novosibirsk,Russia
2Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk,Russia
Keywords: two-phase flow, Т-mixer, slug flow, slug length
Abstract
The two-phase flow was experimentally studied in three horizontal channels of rectangular cross-section: 0.23×1 mm, 0.51×1 mm, and 1×1 mm. Distilled water was used as a liquid, and nitrogen was used as a gas. The paper considers in detail the features of two-phase flow formation. The effect of the rectangular channel height on the boundaries of two-phase flow regimes was investigated. It was found that the region of the bubble flow is hardly affected by the channel height; however, with a decrease in the latter, the region of the slug flow decreases significantly, while the region of the slug-annular flow expands. The characteristics of the slug flow have been studied in detail. The dependences of the length of gas slugs and liquid bridges on the reduced liquid velocity, the reduced gas velocity, and also the channel height have been studied. A comparison with known correlations is made and it is shown that they describe the experimental data in a narrow range of parameters, and as the height of the rectangular channel decreases, the data scatter increases.
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