Experiment and modeling of liquid-phase flow in a venturi tube using stereoscopic PIV

Venturi tube is based on turbulent flow, whereby the microbubbles can be generated by the turbulent fragmentation. This phenomenon is common in several venturi bubblers used by the nuclear, aerospace and chemical industries. The first objective of this paper is to study the liquid-phase velocity field experimentally and develop correlations for the turbulent quantities. The second objective is to research velocity field characteristics theoretically. Stereoscopic PIV measurements for the velocity field have been analyzed and utilized to develop the turbulent kinetic energy in the venturi tube. The tracking properties of the tracer particles have been verified enough for us to analyze the turbulence field. The turbulence kinetic energy has a bimodal distribution trend. Also, the results of turbulence intensity along the horizontal direction is gradually uniform along the downstream. Both the mean velocity and the fluctuation velocity are proportional to the Reynolds number. Besides, the distribution trend of the mean velocity and the velocity fluctuation can be determined by the geometric parameters of the venturi tube. An analytical function model for the flow field has been developed to obtain the approximate analytical solutions. Good agreement is observed between the model predictions and experimental data. (c) 2020 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study examines the turbulent flow characteristics in a Venturi tube, revealing a bimodal distribution trend of turbulent kinetic energy and gradual uniformization of turbulence intensity along the horizontal direction. Both mean velocity and fluctuation velocity are proportional to the Reynolds number, while the distribution trend of mean velocity and velocity fluctuation can be determined by the geometric parameters of the Venturi tube.