Primary instabilities of liquid film flow sheared by turbulent gas stream

Evolution of excited waves on a viscous liquid film has been investigated experimentally for the annular gas-liquid flow in a vertical tube. For the first time the dispersion relations are obtained experimentally for linear waves on liquid film surface in the presence of turbulent gas flow. Both cocurrent and countercurrent flow regimes are investigated. As an example of comparison with theory, the experimental data are compared to the results of calculations based on the Benjamin quasi-laminar model for turbulent gas flow. The calculation results are found to be in good agreement with experiments for moderate values of film Reynolds number. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.