Horizontal Couette-Taylor flow in a two-phase gas-liquid system: flow patterns

Favorable feature of the Couette-Taylor (CT) flow recently resulted in application it to two-phase systems. High value of mass transfer coefficients and high value of interfacial area in gas-liquid flow was obtained in [Chem. Eng. Sci. 54 (1999) 2963; 56 (2001) 1131; Dluska et al., 6th World Congress of Chemical Engineering, Melbourne, Australia, 23-27 September 2001]. However, so far very little is known about hydrodynamics of such a flow. In this work typical flow structure for gas-liquid horizontal CT flow was described. The maps of the flow regime were presented. The observed regime was plotted as a function of power input (connected with the rotor rotation) and modified liquid mass flux. The most interesting for practical application was the ring flow regime. Such a flow was observed where liquid vortices are separated by the gas rings. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.