Visualization and void fraction measurement of gas–liquid two-phase flow in plate heat exchanger

Adiabatic and boiling gas–liquid two-phase flows in a simulated plate heat exchanger with a single-ribbed channel were visualized by a thermal neutron radiography method. In the experiments under adiabatic condition, the air–water two-phase flows in an aluminum test section were visualized. In the boiling two-phase flow experiments, chlorofluorocarbon R141b was used as the working fluid. Two-dimensional distributions of void fraction were measured from visualized images via some image processing techniques. As a result, it was shown that both the phases tended to flow straight in the ribbed channel, and mixing of gas and liquid phases was weak. Moreover, when working fluids flew into the test section as a gas–liquid mixture, the phase distributions were strongly affected by a liquid pool at the test section inlet.