Bounds on Two-Phase Flow: Part I — Frictional Pressure Gradient in Circular Pipes

Abstract

Simple rules are developed for obtaining rational bounds for two-phase frictional pressure gradient. Both the lower and upper bounds are based on the separate cylinders formulation. The lower bound is based on turbulent-turbulent flow that uses the Blasius equation to represent the Fanning friction factor. The upper bound is based on an equation that represents well the Lockhart-Martinelli correlation for turbulent-turbulent flow. The model is verified using published experimental data of two-phase frictional pressure gradient versus mass flux at constant mass quality. The published data include different working fluids such as R-12 and R-22 at different mass qualities, different pipe diameters, and different saturation temperatures. It is shown that the published data can be well bounded for a wide range of mass fluxes, mass qualities, pipe diameters and saturation temperatures. The bounds models are also presented in a dimensionless form as two-phase frictional multiplier (φl and φg) versus Lockhart-Martinelli parameter (X) for different working fluids such as R-12, R-22, air-oil and air-water mixtures.