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Rotating gas-liquid flows in finite cylinders: Sensitivity of standing vortices to end effects

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Abstract

The spiraling and straight gas-filled vortices formed by a rotating mixture of a gas and a liquid flowing through a finite-length cylinder are the subject of this paper. The working fluids considered are primarily helium and water. The bubbly liquid enters and leaves the cyclone-type separator tangentially. A gas-core vortex forms due to the resulting swirling motion of the mixture and, ideally, most of the gas leaves through an opening centered in the inlet end-wall of the vertical cylinder. The sensitivity of the gas-core configurations to the relative angle between the tangential inlet and outlet (φ) and to the length-to-diameter ratio of the cylinder (L/D) are investigated experimentally. Direct observations of the flow field are made using video and still cameras. The various gas-core vortex configurations are classified in a stability diagram. Although, as many as eight different types of core patterns have been identified, they are of two basic modes: straight and helical-spiral, or combinations of these. However, the straight mode is neither perfectly straight nor axisymmetric; it contains some non-uniformities. In an L/D-versus-φ plane, a linear ridge exists that is a sensitive stability line dividing the regimes of the straight and helical-spiral modes. The relationship between the two modes is examined, and the statistics of the wavelength and diameter of the helical spiral are given. A kinematic model is deducted and is used to explain the observed changes in the geometric parameters of the gas core.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Weapons Technology and Undersea Systems Department, 02841, Newport, RI, USA

    P. R. Bandyopadhyay

  2. University of Notre Dame, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, 46556, Notre Dame, IN, USA

    M. Gad-el-Hak

Authors
  1. P. R. Bandyopadhyay
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  2. M. Gad-el-Hak
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Additional information

This work was funded under NUWC Project No. E30501, “Gas-Liquid Separator,” sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and monitored by D.J. Goodrich and E.G. Dow of NUWC Division Newport. Publication of this work was supported by Dr. Richard H. Nadolink, the NUWC Division Newport Director of Science and Technology. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of J.D. Hrubes, P.J. Hendricks, G.C. Pacifico and W.G. Fennell. Mohamed Gad-el-Hak worked at NUWC Division Newport as an ONR Distinguished Faculty Fellow during the summer of 1993 when the flow visualization experiments were conducted. He wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Office of Naval Research.

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Bandyopadhyay, P.R., Gad-el-Hak, M. Rotating gas-liquid flows in finite cylinders: Sensitivity of standing vortices to end effects. Experiments in Fluids 21, 124–138 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00193916

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00193916

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