Liquid-phase turbulence measurements were performed in an air–water two-phase flow loop with a circular test section of 50 mm inner diameter using a particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. An optical phase separation method-–planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique—which uses fluorescent particles and an optical filtration technique, was employed to separate the signals of the fluorescent seeding particles from those due to bubbles and other noises. An image pre-processing scheme was applied to the raw PIV images to remove the noise residuals that are not removed by the PLIF technique. In addition, four-sensor conductivity probes were adopted to measure the radial distribution of the void fraction. Two benchmark tests were performed: the first was a comparison of the PIV measurement results with those of similar flow conditions using thermal anemometry from previous studies; the second quantitatively compared the superficial liquid velocities calculated from the local liquid velocity and void fraction measurements with the global liquid flow rate measurements. The differences of the superficial liquid velocity obtained from the two measurements were bounded within ±7% for single-phase flows and two-phase bubbly flows with the area-average void fraction up to 18%. Furthermore, a preliminary uncertainty analysis was conducted to investigate the accuracy of the two-phase PIV measurements. The systematic uncertainties due to the circular pipe curvature effects, bubble surface reflection effects and other potential uncertainty sources of the PIV measurements were discussed. The purpose of this work is to facilitate the development of a measurement technique (PIV-PLIF) combined with image pre-processing for the liquid-phase turbulence in gas–liquid two-phase flows of relatively high void fractions. The high-resolution data set can be used to more thoroughly understand two-phase flow behavior, develop liquid-phase turbulence models, and assess high-fidelity codes for multi-phase flows.

In modeling gas-liquid two-phase flows, the concept of flow regimes has been widely used to characterize the global interfacial structure of the flows. Nearly all constitutive relations that provide closures to the interfacial transfers in two-phase flow models, such as the two-fluid model, are flow regime dependent. Current nuclear reactor safety analysis codes, such as RELAP5, classify flow regimes using flow regime maps or transition criteria that were developed for steady-state, fully-developed flows. As twophase flows are dynamic in nature, it is important to model the flow regime transitions dynamically to more accurately predict the two-phase flows. The present work aims to develop a dynamic modeling strategy to determine flow regimes in gas-liquid twophase flows through introduction of interfacial area transport equations (IATEs) within the framework of a two-fluid model. The IATE is a transport equation that models the interfacial area concentration by considering the creation of the interfacial area, fluid particle (bubble or liquid droplet) disintegration, boiling and evaporation, and the destruction of the interfacial area, fluid particle coalescence and condensation. For flow regimes beyond bubbly flows, a two-group IATE has been proposed, in which bubbles are divided into two groups based on their size and shapes, namely group-1 and group-2 bubbles. A preliminary approach to dynamically identify the flow regimes is discussed, in which discriminators are based on the predicted information, such as the void fraction and interfacial area concentration. The flow regime predicted with this method shows good agreement with the experimental observations.

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The local axial relative velocity between the gas and liquid phases in vertical air-water two-phase bubbly, cap-bubbly, and slug flows is investigated at axial measurement locations of z/D = 10 and 32. These measurements are performed in an acrylic vertical pipe with an inner diameter of 50 mm and a height of 3.2 m. The local gas-phase velocity and void fraction measurements are performed using a four-sensor conductivity probe at 14 radial locations. The void fraction profiles are presented to show the flow structure and are used along with visual observation to classify the flow regimes. The liquid-phase velocity measurements are performed using a particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. To separate the liquid-phase information from that of the gas phase an optical phase separation method that uses fluorescent particles and an optical filtration technique is adopted. To remove other noises, such as bubble residuals, background noise, and optically distorted particles from the images that are not removed using the optical phase separation method, an image pre-processing scheme is applied to the raw PIV images. The local axial relative velocity obtained from these local gas- and liquid-phase measurements are important for modeling the momentum transfer between the two phases.