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In this study, upward air–water two-phase flow tests were carried out in a 3 cm diameter pipe under atmospheric pressure, and over 3000 data points were collected from a wide range of superficial gas and liquid velocities (⟨jg⟩ ≈ 0.02–30 m/s and ⟨jf⟩ ≈ 0.02–2 m/s) for the investigation of flow regime identification. The probability density function (PDF) of transient void fraction signals and its full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) were obtained and used for analysis and data classification. Considering the features of PDF profiles, the flow conditions can be classified into four regions, which show a fair agreement with the existing flow regime maps in general trends. Furthermore, by examining the FWHM distributions, two more regions with high-FWHM (HF) values were identified as the transitions of higher-flow bubbly-to-slug and slug-to-churn flows as well as most portion of churn flow, and a valley region next to the HF regions can express the transition of churn-to-annular flows. Overall, six groups of flow conditions can be classified based on the present methodology, and each group can be corresponding to specific flow regimes or transition regions. This study can provide a simple and efficient way for flow regime identification.

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This paper presents the experimental results and analyses of the structure velocity of air-water two-phase flow in a 3 × 3 rod bundle channel. A total of 56 flow conditions were tested and investigated for rod-gap, sub-channel, rod-wall and global regions of rod bundle geometry. The experimental tests were carried out under bubbly and cap-bubbly flow regimes with superficial gas and liquid velocities of 0–1 m/s and 1–1.7 m/s, respectively. The conductivity probes were set at different heights to measure the global and local void fractions. The structure velocity of air-water two-phase flow is the average bubble velocity calculated by the method in this study. The structure velocity were determined by utilizing the cross-correlation technique to analyze the time lags of the bubbles passing through the conductivity probes. The results of this study indicated that the structure velocity may increase with increasing superficial gas and liquid velocities. In low superficial gas velocity region, the structure velocity may first slightly increase and follow by a sudden jump which appear in most regions. After the sudden jump, the structure velocity may keep increasing mildly. The present structure velocities have been compared with the area-averaged gas velocities predicted by the drift flux model, and it appears that most structure velocities show a good agreement with the averaged gas velocities from the drift flux model after the jump.