Interfacial area concentration in steady fully-developed bubbly flow

Although bubbly flows are encountered in Various engineering fields, there are very few established theoretical foundations on the interfacial area co ncentration, which have been supported by extensive experimental data. From this point of view, a simple equation for the interfacial area concentrati on under steady fully-developed bubbly flow condition has been derived from the interfacial area transport equation. The derived theoretical equation has been modified to obtain experimentally supported predictive correlation . The obtained interfacial area correlation was validated by 204 data sets measured in air-water bubbly flows under various conditions. These data set s covered extensive flow and loop conditions such as channel geometry (circ ular or rectangular channel), flow direction (vertical or horizontal flow), superficial gas velocity (0.018-4.87 m/s), superficial liquid velocity (0. 262-6.55 mis) and interfacial area concentration (25.8-1083 m(-1)). An exce llent agreement was obtained between the developed semi-theoretical correla tion and data within an average relative deviation of +/- 11.1%. (C) 2001 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.