Size distribution and Sauter mean diameter of micro bubbles for a Venturi type bubble generator

An investigation is carried out to determine how air and water flow rates as well as the air inlet size (variable parameters) influence the size distribution of micro bubbles for a Venturi type bubble generator. Size distribution is extracted from the videos captured during the experiments using two different post processing algorithms which all report similar trends. The significance of the size distribution of micro bubbles is discussed and the results of the experiments are reported. It is shown that Sauter mean diameter and statistical parameters of log-normal distribution are influenced by the variable parameters and can be expressed using theoretical model based on dimensionless numbers containing these parameters. It is shown that such theoretical model reports influence of variable parameters on the investigated ones which is consistent with the population balance model as well as with the correlations previously reported in literature. Finally, the significance of correlation between variable parameters and statistical parameters of the distribution is discussed. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.