Void Fraction of Annular Gas-liquid Flow

Between Modeling & Experimental

Measurements

Term Project
In
Phase Change Heat Transfer & Two Phase Flow Course (ME-612)
Semester 181

By
Muhammad Hamdy El-bassoussi

Course Instructor
Prof. Dr. Abdelsalam Mohammed Al-sarkhi

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Contents
 Introduction

 Motivation

 Objectives

 Experimental Data

 Selected Model

 Results

 Conclusions & Recommendations for Future Work

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Introduction
 Two-phase fluid flows have different flow patterns.

 This study focuses on annular gas-liquid two-phase flow.

 Main characteristics of annular two-phase flow:

o Annular flow occurs at very high gas flow rates.

o The flow is associated with a wavy interfacial structure that results in a

high interfacial shear stress.

o The flow is characterized by a fast moving gas core with entrained liquid
droplets and a slow moving liquid film flowing around the pipe wall.

o Entrainment fraction: The fraction of the liquid flow rate which is

entrained in the gas core as droplets.

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Motivation
 Gas–liquid annular two phase flow in pipes is important in the oil and gas,
nuclear and the process industries.

 It has been identified as one of the most frequently encountered flow regimes
and many models (empirical and theoretical) have been developed since the
1950s.

 The void fraction is strongly needed to characterize any gas-liquid two-phase

flow.

 It has very significant effects on different key physical parameters, such as

viscosity, pressure drop and heat transfer.

 In two-phase flows in nuclear plants for example, the determination of the void
fraction is of practical importance for the design and the safety evaluation of the
plant.

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Objectives
 To compare modeled void fraction for annular gas-liquid
flow with existing experimental measurements.

 To find the errors arising from modeling and its

significance.

 To also investigate the effect of the entrainment fraction

modeling on the flow void fraction and hence on our
comparison.

 To do all the points above at different pipe inclination

angles.

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Experimental Data
 By Kyle Magrini et al. (2012)

 About liquid entrainment in annular gas-liquid flow in inclined

pipes.

 Air and water were used as the working fluids.

 The average measured densities for air and water were 1.49 and
996 kg/m3, respectively.

 The pipe internal diameter was 76.2 mm.

 Pipe inclination angles of 0, 10, 20, 45, 60, 75, and 90° were
included in this work.

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Experimental Data … cont.

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Experimental Data … cont.

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Selected Model
 By Smith (1969)

 Introduced a correlation for the void fraction in two phase flow

based on equal velocity head approach.

 Smith’s model assumptions:

i. The flow is annular gas-liquid flow with a homogeneous mixture phase and a

liquid phase.

ii. The homogeneous mixture phase and the liquid phase have the same velocity

head.

iii. Thermal equilibrium exists throughout the flow.

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Selected Model … cont.

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Selected Model … cont.
 To use the void fraction correlation of Smith, the current study

has used two models for the entrainment fraction.

 In the first model, the entrainment fraction is constant and equal

to 0.40 for all flow conditions and for all pipe inclination angles.

 Smith claimed that an entrainment fraction of 0.40 best fits the

experimental measurements of the void fraction.

 In the second model, Wallis model of the entrainment fraction

(1969) has been used.

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Results

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Results … cont.

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Results … cont.

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Results … cont.

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Results … cont.

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Conclusions & Recommendations
for Future Work
 It has been found that the differences between the calculated void fraction and
the measured one are very small and almost negligible.

 There are some considerable differences between the values of the entrainment
fraction obtained from two different approaches, but however these differences
are not reflected on the void fraction values.

 So, we can say that the void fraction of annular gas-liquid flow with high mixture
quality doesn’t depend on the way used to obtain or model the entrainment
fraction.

 In addition to the results obtained here, a wider range of experimental data is

strongly recommended to give more conclusive and reliable results.

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?

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