Simulations of gas–liquid turbulent flows in helically coiled tubes are conducted by a two-fluid hydrodynamic model coupled with the population balance equation. A model of bubble breakup in a turbulent flow, recently developed by the authors, is incorporated into the ANSYS Fluent CFD code employed as a computational tool. The population balance equation is solved by a discrete method. A realizable k-epsilon turbulence model is used for all computations. Numerous simulations of gas-liquid flows in vertically oriented coiled tubes are conducted. Three different coil diameters are employed for simulations. Computed bubble chord distributions are close to experimental data. Simulated dependencies of the superficial liquid velocity on the superficial gas velocity, corresponding the bubbly-intermittent flow regime transition, are in excelled agreement with measured ones. On the other hand, dependencies, obtained using standard bubble breakup models, significantly deviate from experimental results. Thus, it is demonstrated that employment of the novel bubble breakup model greatly enhances a computational accuracy of gas-liquid flows in helically coiled tubes.

螺旋盘管中气液湍流的模拟是通过结合总体平衡方程的双流体流体动力学模型进行的。作者最近开发的湍流中的气泡破裂模型被合并到用作计算工具的 ANSYS Fluent CFD 代码中。人口平衡方程通过离散方法求解。可实现的 k-epsilon 湍流模型用于所有计算。对垂直定向盘管中的气液流动进行了大量模拟。三种不同的线圈直径用于模拟。计算的气泡弦分布接近实验数据。表观液体速度对表观气体速度的模拟依赖性，对应于气泡-间歇流态转变，与测量值非常吻合。另一方面，使用标准气泡破裂模型获得的相关性与实验结果显着不同。因此，证明采用新型气泡破裂模型大大提高了螺旋盘管中气液流动的计算精度。