Interaction and ordering of bubbles levitated in vortical flow (original) (raw)

Experimental study of bubble-drag interaction in a Taylor-Couette flow

This study is an experimental investigation of the interactions between the bubbles, the coherent motion and the viscous drag in a Taylor Couette flow, for the outer cylinder at rest. The cylinder radius ratio η is 0.9. Bubbles are injected through a needle at the bottom of the apparatus inside the gap. Different bubble sizes are investigated (ratio between the bubble size and the gap width 0.05 and 0.12) for very small void fraction (α≤0.012). Different flow regimes are studied corresponding to Reynolds number Re based on the gap width and the velocity of the inner cylinder ranging from 400 to 20000. For these Re values, Taylor vortices are persistent leading to an axial periodicity of the flow. PIV measurements of the liquid flow features, bubble tracking in a meridian plane and viscous torque of the inner cylinder measurements are performed. This study provides a first evidence of the link between the bubble localisation, the Taylor vortices and viscous torque modifications. Bubbles are attracted towards the inner cylinder, due to the rotation of the cylinder. For small buoyancy effect, bubbles are trapped and induce a decrease in the outflow intensity, thus leading to an increase of the viscous torque. When buoyancy induced bubble motion, by comparison to the coherent motion of the liquid is increased, a decrease in the viscous torque is suspected.

Generation and control of monodisperse bubble suspensions in microgravity

Aerospace Science and Technology

A new experimental setup for the generation of homogeneous, monodisperse bubble suspensions in turbulent duct flows in microgravity has been designed and tested in drop tower experiments. The setup provides independent control of bubble size, void fraction and degree of turbulence. The device combines several slug-flow injectors that produce monodisperse bubble jets, with a turbulent co-flow that ensures homogeneous spatial spreading. Bubble separation in the scale of the most energetic eddies of the flow, and bubble size sufficiently smaller, ensure that turbulence is most efficient as a mechanism for spatial spreading of bubbles while preventing coalescence, thus optimizing the homogeneous and monodisperse character of the suspension. The setup works in a regime for which bubbles are spherical, but sufficiently large compared to the turbulent dissipative scales to allow for two-way coupling between bubbles and carrying flow. The volume fraction is kept relatively small to facilitate particle tracking techniques. To illustrate the potential uses of the method we characterize the statistics of bubble velocity fluctuations in steady regimes and we characterize the transient relaxation of the buoyancy-driven pseudo-turbulence when gravity is switched-off. Nomenclature ν Kinematic viscosity Re Reynolds number U c Characteristic flow velocity L c Characteristic system size T c Characteristic time of the flow λ k Kolmogorov length τ k Kolmogorov time λ Max Characteristic size of most energetic eddies τ Max Characteristic time of most energetic eddies τ B Bubble response time Q l Volumetric liquid flow rate Q g Volumetric gas flow rate Q co-flow Volumetric co-flow rate ϑ Void fraction d T T-junction tubes diameter d B Bubble size u i Component of the bubble velocity in the i direction n Mean number of bubbles on given interval σ i Standard deviation of i component of bubble velocity a, b, τ Fittings parameters for bubble velocities d Mean separation of pair of bubbles d xy Mean separation in the plane xy between pairs of bubbles d 0 , v sep , L Fittings parameters for pair separations

Effect of bubble’s arrangement on the viscous torque in bubbly Taylor-Couette flow

Physics of Fluids, 2015

An experimental investigation of the interactions between bubbles, coherent motion, and viscous drag in a Taylor-Couette flow with the outer cylinder at rest is presented. The cylinder radii ratio η is 0.91. Bubbles are injected inside the gap through a needle at the bottom of the apparatus. Different bubbles sizes are investigated (ratio between the bubble diameter and the gap width ranges from 0.05 to 0.125) for very small void fraction (α ≤ 0.23%). Different flow regimes are studied corresponding to Reynolds number Re based on the gap width and velocity of the inner cylinder, ranging from 6 × 10 2 to 2 × 10 4 . Regarding these Re values, Taylor vortices are persistent leading to an axial periodicity of the flow. A detailed characterization of the vortices is performed for the single-phase flow. The experiment also develops bubbles tracking in a meridian plane and viscous torque of the inner cylinder measurements. The findings of this study show evidence of the link between bubbles localisation, Taylor vortices, and viscous torque modifications. We also highlight two regimes of viscous torque modification and various types of bubbles arrangements, depending on their size and on the Reynolds number. Bubbles can have a sliding and wavering motion near the inner cylinder and be either captured by the Taylor vortices or by the outflow areas near the inner cylinder. For small buoyancy effect, bubbles are trapped, leading to an increase of the viscous torque. When buoyancy induced bubbles motion is increased by comparison to the coherent motion of the liquid, a decrease in the viscous torque is rather observed. The type of bubble arrangement is parameterized by the two dimensionless parameters C and H introduced by Climent et al.

Characteristics of bubble behavior in microgravity conditions

CHARACTERISTICS OF BUBBLE BEHAVIOR IN MICROGRAVITY CONDITIONS Thilanka Munasinghe The main objective of this thesis is to study the characteristics of bubbles in pool boiling under microgravity conditions with and without the influence of a magnetic field. In order to create microgravity conditions, the parabolic path of an aircraft was used for a period of 20-30 seconds, during

The Effect of Bubbles on Vortical Flows

Volume 2: Symposia and General Papers, Parts A and B, 2002

The effect of bubbles on the evolution of vortical flows near a wall are studied by direct numerical simulations, using a finite volume/front tracking technique that accounts fully for the effect of fluid inertia, viscosity, bubble deformability, and surface tension. Two problems have been studied. In one, the interaction of bubbles with a welldefined vortical flow, consisting of a parabolic velocity profile and a pair of counter-rotating straight vortex filaments near a wall, parallel to the flow direction, is followed. For a wide range of injection sites and bubble sizes, as well as for different number of bubbles, the motion of the bubbles into the vortex core leads to a cancellation of the original vorticity with secondary wall vorticity, resulting in a small transient reduction of the wall shear. In the other study, bubbles are injected near the wall in a turbulent channel flow. The evolution of the bubbles and the modification of the flow is followed as the bubbles migrate away from the wall.

The role of coherent structures in bubble transport by turbulent shear flows

Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 1994

Using Auton's force law for the unsteady motion of a spherical bubble in inhomogeneous unsteady flow, two key dimensionless groups are deduced which determine whether isolated vortices or shear-layer vortices can trap bubbles. These groups represent the ratio of inertial to buoyancy forces as a relaxation parameter 17 = AU2/2gx and a trapping parameter r = AUI VT where AUis the velocity difference across the vortex or the shear layer, x is streamwise distance measured from the effective origin of the mixing layer and VT is the terminal slip speed of the bubble or particle. It is shown here that whilst buoyancy and drag forces can lead to bubbles moving in closed orbits in the vortex flows (either free or forced), only inertial forces result in convergent trajectories. Bubbles converge on the downflow side of the vortex at a location that depends on the inertial and lift forces. It is important to note that the latter have been omitted from many earlier studies.

Bubble coalescence in turbulent flows: A mechanistic model for turbulence-induced coalescene applied to microgravity bubbly pipe flow

International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 2001

A mechanistic model for bubble coalescence in turbulent¯ow is presented. The model is developed in two steps, which are essentially separable. In the ®rst, expressions put forward earlier for the collision frequency and coalescence probability of equal bubbles during turbulence-driven, high-Reynolds-number collisions are extended to unequal bubbles and to take account of bubble±turbulence and bubble±bubble interactions. In the second, the resulting expression for the coalescence rate is used to derive source terms in the transport equations for the moment densities of the bubble-diameter distribution, which can readily be evaluated locally within a CFD code. The result is an extremely compact framework capable of providing predictions of the evolution of bubble size distributions in space and time at the expense of only two additional scalar transport equations. To provide an experimental validation of the model, some data on the bubble size evolution along a pipe¯ow under microgravity conditions have been used. Microgravity experiments on gas±liquid bubbly pipe¯ows have been carried out during parabolic¯ights in aircraft. Bubble diameter distributions have been determined from high speed video recording and image processing. In the absence of gravity, collisions between bubbles smaller than the integral length scale of turbulence are primarily due to turbulence. The results from the calculation are in good agreement with the experimental data. The model is then used to predict the in¯uence of the void fraction, the bubble size at the pipe inlet and the liquid mean velocity on the coalescence rate.