Benchmark database on the evolution of two-phase flows in a vertical pipe Original Research Article

Based on many years of experience, a new extensive and high-quality database was obtained for steady-state upward air–water flows in a vertical pipe with an inner diameter of 195.3 mm using the wire-mesh sensor technology. During the experiments, the sensor was always mounted on the top of the test section while the distance between gas injection and measuring plane was varied up to 18 different L/D by using gas injection chambers at different vertical positions. The gas was injected via holes in the pipe wall. In this new test series the pressure was kept at 0.25 MPa (absolute) at the location of the active gas injection while the temperature was constant at 30 °C ± 1 K. The experiments were done for 48 combinations of air and water superficial velocities varying from 0.04 m/s to 1.6 m/s for water and 0.0025 m/s to 3.2 m/s for air. From the raw data time-averaged data as: radial gas volume fraction profiles, bubble size distributions, radial volume fraction profiles decomposed according to the bubble size and the radial profiles of the gas velocity were calculated. The consistency of this data was thoroughly checked. They are characterized by a high resolution in space, which makes them suitable for the development and validation of CFD-grade closure models, e.g. for bubble forces and coalescence and break-up. It is also an ideal base to validate CFD approaches for poly-dispersed flow. For this reason it is proposed to use the database as a benchmark for modelling poly-dispersed flows.