Experimental study on two-phase pressure drop of air-water in small diameter tubes at horizontal orientation

Abstract

Experimental results of adiabatic two-phase pressure drop in small diameter tubes are presented in this work. Air-water mixture is used as the working substance. Four test sections made of transparent acrylic tubes of different internal diameters ranging from 3.0 mm to 8.0 mm are used with different test section lengths from 150 mm to 400 mm. The investigation is carried out within the range of mass flux of water 16.58-3050 kg/m2s, mass flux of air 8.25-204.10 kg/m2s, and total mass flux of 99.93-3184.69 kg/m2s. Some of the existing correlations for macro- and mini-channels are compared with the experimental data. Based on the experimental data a new correlation has been developed to predict two-phase pressure drop in horizontal channels.