Determinação experimental das velocidades de duas bolhas de Taylor escoando em líquido estagnado

Abstract

Gas-liquid flows have broad industrial applications, from steam generation to nuclear energy production and oil activities, among others. Therefore, studying these flows to understand how they develop and what responses can be obtained with a given flow pattern is necessary. The present work aims to study the interaction of different volumes of Taylor bubbles (air) in a pipe containing stagnant liquid (water). For this purpose, tests were performed with three different volumes of bubbles released in pairs from a device built and coupled to an apparatus designed to perform experiments with gas-liquid flow. The interaction between bubbles was analyzed by processing videos recorded with the smartphone camera. The data obtained from the experimental tests carried out showed that the primary bubble flows without being affected by the secondary, which in turn suffers an increase in velocity for smaller spacings between bubbles. Throughout the flow, the sizes of the bubbles increase and the spacing between them tends to decrease. This behavior is a consequence of the decrease in hydrostatic force and the increase in instabilities behind the primary bubble, related to the size of the turbulent wake of dispersed bubbles and the spacing between bubbles.