RESEARCH NOTES

Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 19(3) 529ü532 (2011)

Improved Correlation for the Volume of Bubble Formed

in Air-Water System*

WANG Hongyi (ฆ‫)ྡྷ܃‬, DONG Feng (Ռ‫**)ע‬, BIAN Yuchen (ή᥾ф) and TAN Chao (൪б)
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Process Measurement and Control, School of Electrical Engineering and Automation,
Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

Abstract In order to address the bubble formation and movement in air-water two-phase flow, single bubble ris-
ing in stagnant water is experimentally studied by digital image processing. Bubbles are released individually from
the submerged orifices with different diameters (1.81 mm, 2.07 mm, 2.98 mm, 3.92 mm) at different detachment
frequency. Images are recorded by a high-speed video camera and processed by digital image processing technique.
The factors impacting the formed volume of bubble are discussed. The experimental results showed that a threshold
of gas flow rate (400 mm3·s1) divides the bubble formation into two regimes: the constant volume regime and the
growing volume regime. Especially for the growing volume regime, the surface tension is taken into account. The
bubble volume is consisted of two parts: the surface tension impacting part and the gas volume flow rate impacting
part. An improved correlation for bubble volume prediction is developed for the two regimes and better coincidence
with the experiment data than the previous models is obtained.
Keywords high-speed image, bubble formed volume, gas volume flow rate, gas orifice diameter

1 INTRODUCTION spectively, D0 is the gas orifice diameter, ı is the sur-

Bubble size is one of the most important pa-
rameters of bubbly flow. In recent years, many re-
searchers have studied on the application and predic-
tion of the size of bubble in gas-liquid two phase flow.
Zhang and Huang [1] studied the effect of bubble size
on the oxygen transfer coefficient in gas-liquid reac-
tion process and pointed out that the size of bubble
plays a decisive role to the reaction result. Experi-
ments were performed by Peng et al. [2] to investigate
the bubble behavior in direct current (DC) electric
field and showed that both the electric field and orifice
size have great influence on the aspect ratio and de-
parture volume of bubble. Jiang et al. [3] studied the
behavior of bubble formation at a single orifice in
non-Newtonian polyacrylamide (PAAm) solution and
found that the volume of bubble increased with the
concentration of PAAm solution, the diameter of the
orifice, and the gas flow rate, but no computing corre-
lation for bubble volume was proposed.
face tension of liquid, g is the acceleration of gravity.
Datta et al. [5] investigated bubble motion in wa-
ter through experiments with different orifices (0.36 to
3.88 mm). They predicted the bubble size at low gas
flow rate similar to Eq. (1), but ignored the gas density.
Coppock and Meiklejohn [6] carried out experiments
in the air-water system using orifices with the diame-
ters from 0.61 to 2.93 mm. They found that bubble
size remained constant at low gas flow rate for a given
orifice, but varied at high gas flow rate. The correla-
tion of bubble size for low gas flow rate is
Vb 0.3185C SV D0 / Ul (2)
where C is a coefficient which is adjusted with the
liquid. All the correlations introduced above fail to
reflect the impact of gas flow rate on the bubble size.
Davidson and Amick [7] studied air bubbles
which were generated in distilled water and oil by
orifices with the diameters ranging from 0.175 to 7.9
mm. They predicted the bubble size by

0.0265S  Qv D01/ 2 
Some other researchers have been attempted to 0.0195
compute the size of bubble in air-water system. Most Vb (3)
of these studies considered the balance of buoyancy Then, in 1960, Davidson and Schuler [8] performed
and surface tension of a bubble. A spherical model the experiments with different orifice diameters (2.98,
was given by Krevelen and Hoftijzer [4] from experi- 3.74, 4.12, and 4.6 mm) and pointed out that the in-
ments with air-water systems in capillary tubes, which fluence of gas orifice diameter on bubble size can be
presumed that the bubble was spherical, and the liquid ignored as long as the gas flow rate is big enough.
viscosity and convection could be ignored. The com- They predicted the bubble size as
puting formula of bubble size was expressed as
Vb 0.439SQv6 / 5 g 3/ 5 (4)
SV D0
Vb (1)
 Ul  U g  g Wraith [9] developed Davidson and Schuler’s results
by experiments with orifices with larger diameter (6.43
where ȡl and ȡg are the density of liquid and gas re- to 19.06 mm) and corrected the coefficient of Eq. (4) as

Received 2010-11-09, accepted 2011-01-19.

* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50776063) and the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin
(11JCZDJC22500).
** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: fdong@tju.edu.cn
530
Vb 0.3471SQv6 / 5 g 3/ 5
But both of them have ignored the influence of gas
orifice diameter. Anagbo et al. [10] promoted the el-
lipsoid model based on the balance of buoyancy and
additional inertia force at high gas flow rate. A com-
puting formula of bubble volume is proposed.
Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 3, June 2011
(5) of air feed at 0.4 MPa. Bubbles are released form the
stainless steel gas orifices (diameters: 1.81 mm, 2.07
mm, 2.98 mm, and 3.92 mm) at the bottom of the tank.
The temperature in the experiment room ranges from
18 to 20 °C. Images of rising bubbles are captured by
a high-speed digital video camera (MiniVis ECO-2)
with spatial resolution of 640×480 pixels and frame
frequency of 500 fps. To minimize the distortion of
0.7  Ug / J l  > D0 /(2 g )@1/ 2 Qv
1/ 4
Vb
Byakova et al. [11] carried out experiments of produc-
ing air bubbles in water and water-soap solution using
gas orifices with diameter from 0.4 to 1 mm. A calcu-
lating model for bubble size is expressed as:
(6) bubble image, the focus of the lens with 50 mm is
adopted to the experiment. And auxiliary light (5400 K
color temperature) back lights the tank in the experi-
ment. During the experiment, we adjust the air control
valve for each orifice to change the gas flow rate and
record the images of bubble movement at different de-
k0 D0n  Qv2 g 1 
m
Vb
where 0İnİ1, 1/5İmİ3/5, k0 is a constant. When
n 0, m 1/5, Eq. (7) is equivalent to Eq. (4) and (5).
In the previous studies, the models for bubble
size prediction were limited to either at low gas flow
rate or high gas flow rate, without considering the
transition stage. Further, the previous models are
various in formations and their accuracy is still in
need of verification. The impact factor on the size of
formed bubble remains a matter of issue. In order to
improve the present status of the modeling efforts,
experiments for the air-water system were carried out
in this work. Bubbles generated by different gas ori-
fices at different gas flow rate were investigated. The
experimental results have shown that a threshold of
gas volume flow rate exists dividing the bubble for-
(7) tachment frequency. Then, the images will be processed
and calibrated by digital image processing methods
[12, 13] to remove noises and retrieve useful information.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Bubble volume measurement
Before the bubble rising away from the orifice,
the bubble almost not distorts during its forming pe-
riod. The formed bubble, at the detaching moment,
can be viewed as axisymmetric, as shown in Fig. 2. So
the formed volume bubble can be acquired from the
2-D image by discrete integral method. The formula
for the formed volume of bubble can be expressed as
S 3
Vb ki3 ¦ S  d j / 2  ki ¦ d 2j
2
mation mechanism into two regimes, i.e. the constant (8)
j: 4 j:
volume regime and the growing volume regime. An
improved computing model of bubble volume based where ȍ is the set of the row numbers that the formed
on the two regimes is then proposed basing on the bubble located in the image. ki is a scale of the actual
aforementioned analysis. length to one pixel, dj is the distance between the two
points in the edge of the bubble in row j.
2 EXPERIMENTAL

A schematic view of the experimental apparatus

is presented in Fig. 1. The rectangular water tank, with
an inside cross-section of 200×200 mm and height of Figure 2 Process of bubble formation (D0 3.92 mm,
f 0.001 Hz, Qv 0.089 mm3·s1, Re 89)
2 m, is made of Plexiglas. The liquid level is 130 cm.
A pressure regulating valve maintains the gas pressure
3.2 Impact factors for bubble size

As so many correlations proposed by the formers,

we know that the bubble formation size is impacted by
several factors. In this paper, air bubbles rising in
stagnant water are mainly studied, so the nature of
liquid and gas is not considered. Considering that the
detachment frequency is closely related to the gas vol-
ume flow rate as follows:
Qv Vb f (9)
The impacts of the detachment frequency and the gas
volume flow rate are coincident with each other. And
the impact of the latter one is mainly described since it
Figure 1 Schematic view of the experiment set up
is easier to be controlled.
Figure 3 presents the relationship of the gas
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 3, June 2011
Figure 3 Bubble volume versus gas volume flow rate
D0/mm: ͪ 1.81; ż 2.07;ƺ2.98;ƿ3.92
volume flow rate and the bubble volume. When gas
volume flow rate is over 400 mm3·s1, both the gas
volume flow rate and the gas orifice diameter have
effect on the formed volume of bubble. Bubble vol-
ume increases with the gas volume flow rate for a
given orifice, as well as increases with the gas orifice
diameter for a given gas volume flow rate. When the
gas volume flow rate is lower than 400 mm3·s1, bub-
ble volume is a constant for a given gas orifice.
Therefore, there is a threshold of gas volume flow rate
to differentiate whether the gas flow rate has effect on
the bubble volume. And the threshold for different
orifice diameters is almost the same (400 mm3·s1).
3.3 Improvement of bubble size computing model
As described above, the single bubble formation
mechanism can be divided into two regimes: the con-
stant volume regime and the growing volume regime.
Based on the model of Refs. [4] and [6], Eq. (1) and (2),
we suppose that the buoyancy of bubble and the liquid
531
ble size. As for Eq. (6) (Anagbo’s model [10]), it under
predicts the bubble volume at lower gas flow rate, but
over predicts at higher gas flow rate. In this region,
viscous drag and liquid inertia are main forces in con-
trolling bubble motion because of the high gas flow
rate. In addition, the surface tension still works on
bubble, which is ignored in the previous research for
its weak effect. Then, the bubble volume for the
growing volume regime may be assumed to consist of
two parts: the surface tension impacting part (VS) and
the gas flow rate impacting part (ǻV),
VH VS  'V (12)
The volume controlled by surface tension is con-
stant for a given orifice and equals to the bubble vol-
ume at low gas flow rate, Eq. (11). The gas flow rate
impacting part is an increasing component which de-
pends on gas volume flow rate and gas orifice diame-
ter. Then, a general formula for the increasing com-
ponent can be written as:
'V c2 Qvn1 D0n2 g n3 (13)
where c2 is a coefficient. Since the dimension of the
left side and the right side in Eq. (12) is the same, the
exponents n1, n2, and n3 must satisfy
­n1  2n3 0
® (14)
¯3n1  n2  n3 3
All the best suitable coefficients were optimized by
the least square technique. And the volume of in-
creasing component is expressed as:
'V 1.2Q1.128
v D00.18 g 0.564 (15)
After substituting Eq. (11) and Eq. (15) into Eq. (12),
the calculating formula for bubble volume for the
growing volume regime is calculated by
SV D0 Q1.128 D 0.18
VH 0.934  1.2 v 0.5640 (16)
surface tension are balanced for the constant volume  Ul  U g  g g
at the low gas volume flow rate. The balance function
can be written as: The calculating results of Eq. (16) are presented
in Fig. 4 as a dotted line with marker ‘×’, which are
 Ul  Ug  gVb c1SV D0 (10)
where c1 is a coefficient depends on liquid property.
When c1 1, it is equivalent to Eq. (1). However,
c1 0.934 is adopted in this paper, which is acquired
by the least squares technique. So, the correlation of
bubble volume for constant volume regime is
SV D0
VL 0.934 (11)
much more accurate than the previous ones. The rela-
tive error of the bubble volume computing models for
the growing volume regime is shown in Table 1. As
shown in Fig. 4, the main error for the previous mod-
els occurs in the transition period between the two re-
gimes where the neglect of the surface tension is not
suitable. The present model, which considers the surface
tension, is more comprehensive than the previous ones.
 Ul  U g  g
Table 1 Relative error of bubble volume for
The computing result of Eq. (11) is shown in Fig. 4 as the growing volume regime
a coarse solid line. But the improvement of optimized Davidson model Wraith model Anagbo model This work
formula for the constant volume regime is not obvious. D0/mm Eq. (4) Eq. (5) Eq. (6) Eq. (16)
For the growing volume regime, bubble volume
1.81 0.480 0.589 0.316 0.050
based on the previous formulas is computed to com-
pare with the experimental data, as shown in Fig. 4. 2.07 0.364 0.474 0.278 0.041
Though the results of Eq. (4) (Davidson and Schuler’s 2.98 0.492 0.568 0.473 0.019
model [8]) is better than that of Eq. (5) (Wraith’s 3.92 0.420 0.541 0.320 0.039
model [9]), both of them are under predicted the bub-
532 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 3, June 2011

NOMENCLATURE

D0 gas orifice diameter, mm

dj distance between two edge points, pixel
f detachment frequency of bubble, Hz
g acceleration of gravity, m·s2
ki scale coefficient, mm·pixel1
Qv gas flow rate, mm3·s1
Re Reynolds number
V volume, mm3
ǻV volume increasing component, mm3
ȡ density, kg·m3
(a) D0 1.81 mm ı surface tension, N·m1
ȍ set of row numbers of the formed bubble
Subscripts
b bubble
g gas
H high gas flow rate
L low gas flow rate
l liquid
S surface tension

REFERENCES

(b) D0 2.07 mm
(c) D0 2.98 mm
(d) D0 3.92 mm
Figure 4 Comparison of bubble volume of different models
Krevelen and Hoftiger Model & Datta Model, Eq. (1);
optimized model for low Qv, Eq. (11); fitting line for
high Qv;ƶDavidson and Schuler Model, Eq. (4);ƿWraith
Model, Eq. (5);ƸAnagbo Model, Eq. (6); × optimized model
for high Qv, Eq. (16);ƻexperiment results
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