Effects of Two-Phase Pressure Drop on the Self-Sustained Oscillatory Instability in Condensing Flows

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an extension of an experimental and theoretical investigation of an unstable flow phenomenon that leads to self-sustained limit-cycle-type oscillations of large amplitude, and which, under certain conditions, can involve flow reversals. The influence of two-phase pressure drop is examined and shown to have a stabilizing effect on the instability. Inclusion of the two-phase pressure drop as part of the downstream throttling allows the utilization of a previously developed linearized analysis, based on the system mean void fraction model, to predict successfully the experimentally observed stability boundary.