PRESSURE-DROP IN 2-PHASE COCURRENT UPWARD FLOW IN PACKED-BEDS - AIR NON-NEWTONIAN LIQUID-SYSTEMS

New data on the two phase pressure drop for the concurrent upflow of a ir-liquid (Newtonian and non-Newtonian) mixtures through packed beds o f spherical and non-spherical particles are presented. The results for single phase flows and for the air-Newtonian liquid mixtures have bee n used both to gauge the overall accuracy of the present experimental methods and to evaluate the validity of the predictive expressions ava ilable in the literature. The two phase pressure drop has been measure d as a function of the liquid and gas flow rates, column diameter and the power law model constants. Depending upon a suitable combination o f the gas and liquid fluxes and the power law index, the two phase pre ssure drop may be less than its value for the flow of liquid alone. A simple expression is proposed which correlates the present set of expe riments (nearly 500 data points) with satisfactory levels of accuracy over the following ranges of conditions: 0.54 less than or equal to n less than or equal to 1; 0.001 less than or equal to Re-L less than o r equal to 50; 3.7 less than or equal to Re-G less than or equal to 17 7 and 0.9 less than or equal to chi (Lockhart-Martinelli parameter) le ss than or equal to 104.