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A preliminary study of interfacial areas in vertical cocurrent, two‐phase upflow
Author(s) -
Watson Alex P.,
Cormack Donald E.,
Charles Michael E.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.5450570103
Subject(s) - pressure drop , flow (mathematics) , mechanics , mass transfer , surface (topology) , two phase flow , phase (matter) , tube (container) , materials science , geology , thermodynamics , chemistry , geometry , physics , composite material , mathematics , organic chemistry
Pseudo‐first order chemical absorption was used as the basis for determining the effective interfacial area available for mass transfer in gas‐liquid, cocurrent, upward pipe flow. The study, which was performed in a 2.54 cm I.D. tube, encompassed the slug and froth flow regimes. The interfacial area displayed a strong dependence upon the coordinates of the flow regime map proposed by Oshinowo and Charles (16) . In addition, the systematic variation of surface area could be rationalized on the basis of flow regime geometry. Unfortunately the data could not be used to assess previous surface area models due to the unresolved diameter dependence of these models. Observations are also made concerning the apparently significant effect of chemical composition on interfacial surface area, and concerning the inadequacy of the popular methods used for estimating frictional pressure drop in vertical two‐phase flows.