MECH-PHD-05-802

Characterisation of slug flow in Horizontal channels Surendra kumar. A. M., Ph.D, 05, 224 pp. Department of Mechanical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400 076. Supervisor(s): Kannan N. Iyer
Slug flow is encountered in many practical situations, where it could damage equipment due to the characteristic pressure rise associated with it. This could induce shock loading on any equipment in which it occurs. In a pressure tube nuclear reactor, during accident conditions, the fuel rod bundles can get overheated due to onset of stratification. In such situations, onset of slug flow would enhance heat transfer and promote cooling. Therefore, an accurate prediction of the onset of slug flow regime and its characteristics is of great practical importance. Experimental studies have been carried out for an air water two phase flow system in two acrylic pipes of diameters 19 mm and 44 mm ID (Inner Diameter) to obtain the different characteristics of horizontal slug flow. In addition, experiments have also been carried out in an annulus formed by inserting an acrylic pipe of diameter 30 mm OD (Outer Diameter) into a pipe of diameter 44 mm ID. The characteristics studied in this work include, frequency of slugging, translation velocity, length of slug and pressure drop. To characterize the first three features, a wire mesh probe was designed and fabricated. This probe consists of two sets of 4 wires separated by a distance of 2 mm. It identifies the presence of liquid or gas by measuring the fluid conductance. The cross correlation between signals from the two wire mesh probes placed at distance of 1m is used to find translation velocity of the slug. To unify the results a correlation is proposed to relate the ratio of translation velocity ((Vt) to slug velocity (Vs)) in terms of slug Reynolds number. The frequency of slugging is found by subjecting the signals from a wire mesh probe to FFT analysis. Using the liquid wetted time and slug translation velocity, the length of the slug is estimated. The results obtained in the current study compare well with the published data available in the literature. The frequency results agree well with the Taitel and Dukler model. Similarly the pressure drop agrees well with Fan and Hanratty model. To unify the entire results, correlations have been worked out for dimensionless length L/D, nondimensional frequency and pressure drop (two-phase multiplier) as functions of four non-dimensional parameters, X, Z, FL, and FG,. The obtained correlations predict the

present experimental data and other data in the literature for circular pipes within 20\%. Analysis was also extended to predict the results obtained from the annulus pipe and it showed good agreement. These results were also correlated. Key Words: Slug flow, Wire mesh probe, Slug frequency, Slug length, Slug pressure drop.