A study of flow characteristics in gas-liquid two-phase flows under microgravity

摘要

Due to a lack of buoyancy in microgravity environment, flow characteristics of two- phase flows under microgravity are known to be different from those on earth. In order to better understand flow characteristics in microgravity, therefore, an experiment was conducted aboard MU-300 aircraft and at normal gravity. They are carried out in an air-water two-phase flow through 40mm diameter adiabatic test section, composed of 600mm lengths of transparent acrylic resin horizontal tube for flow regime observation. The ranges of superficial velocity are 0.1m/s to 2.6m/s for water, 0.03m/s to 21m/s for air, respectively. The experimental data of two-phase frictional pressure drop, flow pattern observations and void fraction were obtained in μG and 2G environments produced on aircraft. They were compared with those under 1G, and also with several widely used empirical equations.