Transportation of fluids in partially filled pipes is common to many areas of industry (e.g. sewerage, mining, and nuclear), yet many aspects remain under-developed, particularly for multiphase and non-Newtonian flows. In this paper a simple framework to enable the accurate prediction of the bulk flow behaviour and settling characteristics of slurries in open conduits is developed and validated experimentally. The experiments involve measurements of flow rate, flow depth and the settling regime for two different solids concentrations of two types of non-colloidal suspensions across a broad range of channel slopes, Reynolds numbers, and Froude numbers. A method is presented that can be used to make a priori predictions of critical sedimentation velocities, which can inform future pipeline designs and operations to minimise the environmental and commercial costs of slurry transfers, including reducing the risk of pipe blockages. Only one parameter required for this technique is not related to the measurable physical properties of the pipeline or fluid. However, it is empirically shown to be well represented by a single, dimensionless constant for all fluids and pipelines tested.

在部分填充的管道中，流体的运输在许多工业领域（例如污水，采矿和核能）都是很普遍的，但许多方面仍未得到开发，特别是对于多相和非牛顿流体。在本文中，开发并通过实验验证了一个简单的框架，该框架能够准确预测开放管道中的泥浆的整体流动特性和沉降特性。实验涉及在宽范围的通道斜率，雷诺数和弗洛德数范围内测量两种类型的非胶体悬浮液的两种不同固体浓度的流速，流深和沉降方式。提出了一种方法，可用于对临界沉积速度进行先验预测，它可以为将来的管道设计和运营提供信息，以最大程度地降低浆料转移的环境和商业成本，包括降低管道堵塞的风险。该技术仅需要一个参数与管道或流体的可测量物理特性无关。但是，根据经验显示，对于所有测试的流体和管道，它都可以由单个无量纲常数很好地表示。