Turbulence modulation of the upward turbulent bubbly flow in vertical ducts

Abstract

The present paper aims at improving the modeling of turbulence for the upward turbulent bubbly flow through the use of experimental databases that contain data on small and large vertical ducts. First, the role of bubble-induced turbulence was analyzed, which indicated the dominant role of the bubble-induced turbulence in the duct center for relatively high void fraction cases. Therefore, the turbulence therein was mainly focused on, which indicated that the stronger turbulence could be induced by bubbles in large ducts with similar void fractions as compared to that in small ducts. Next, the turbulence of upward turbulent bubbly flow near the wall is discussed to understand the interaction between the wall-induced and bubble-induced turbulence. It showed that the existence of a wall could suppress the bubble-induced turbulence given the same void fraction, and the existence of bubbles could also suppress the solely wall-induced turbulence as compared to the single-phase turbulent flow, even though the total turbulence is enhanced. The above characteristics indicated that the current turbulence modeling method needs to be modified, especially when the bubble-induced turbulence plays a dominant role.