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Numerical Modeling of Movements of Taylor Bubbles in Stagnant Liquid Hydrogen Fluids

  • S.I.: Computations & Experiments on Dynamics of Complex Fluid & Structure
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Abstract

Eco-friendly and low-temperature liquid hydrogen has been used as propellants for the launching of rockets. As the low-temperature two-phase gas-liquid flow differs from room-temperature flows, studying the motion of bubbles in the liquid hydrogen fluid is of great importance. By using the volume of the fluid model on the Fluent software, we perform two-dimensional numerical modeling of single Taylor bubble rising movement and double Taylor bubbles coalescence in stagnant liquid hydrogen fluids in vertical and inclined pipe. The results are as follows: for a single Taylor bubble rising in a vertical and inclined pipe, the main hydrodynamic characteristics in the nose area, the liquid film area and the wake region of bubble are determined with the pipe diameter and the inclination angle. Secondly, for double Taylor bubbles rising in a pipe of different inclination angles, the velocity, length and shape of the leading bubble change little, but the velocity and length of the trailing bubbles reduce initially, then increase and reduce again as the separation distance becomes smaller. The research results are helpful to the study of slug flow patterns in cryogenic two-phase flow, and lay a theoretical foundation for the safe transportation of liquid hydrogen propellant in cryogenic pipelines.

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All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the submitted article.

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Funding

This study is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11605136), the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2021JM-324), Special scientific Research Project of Education Department of Shaanxi Province(21JK0780), Science and Technology Project of Xi ‘an Beilin District(GX2109), Science and Technology Project Funded by Shaanxi Provincial Department of Water Resources(2020slkj-10).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Eco-hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710048, China

    J.L. Zuo, K. Zhang, S. Wu, Z. Huang, W. Wang, B.Q. Wei & J.M. Hou

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Xijing University, Xi’an, 710123, China

    N. Zhang

Authors
  1. J.L. Zuo
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  2. K. Zhang
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  3. S. Wu
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  4. Z. Huang
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  5. N. Zhang
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  6. W. Wang
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  7. B.Q. Wei
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  8. J.M. Hou
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Correspondence to J.L. Zuo.

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Appendix

Appendix

The experimental device (Fig. 4) includes an air and water supply system and a test section made of a vertical plexiglass tube with a diameter of 25 mm and a diameter of approximately 170 mm. Filtered tap water is used as a working fluid in a closed circulating flow, and air is supplied by a central compressed air pipe at a nominal pressure of 0.4 MPa. Inject air with a pressure of 0.4pa into the pipe to generate Taylor bubbles of different lengths as required. In order to eliminate the error caused by the injection, the measurement was performed at a distance of 2 m from the entrance; the measurement area of the pipe was sealed with a transparent rectangular plexiglass box filled with water to avoid image distortion. A small amount of almost neutral buoyancy (specific gravity 0.95) silicone rubber particles with a diameter of 20,000–40,000 nm was added to the water, and the velocity field in the liquid around the Taylor bubble was measured by PIV. At the beginning of each test run, refill the pipes with water, and sufficient time has passed between consecutive test runs to ensure that residual flow disturbances are controlled. The output video signals of the two cameras are ignored and connected to the frame through the commutator box. Capture the board. In order to ensure the necessary synchronization between various devices, such as bubble injection, switching between cameras and recording processes, they are all controlled by the clock of the same PC. The image is recorded only when the bubble passes through the field of view of the corresponding camera. Find the outline of the bubble through the edge detection algorithm (respectively for the head and bottom of the bubble). Apply this procedure to each recorded frame to obtain a sequence of 100–200 bubble shape contours for each moving bubble.

Nomenclature The following symbols are used in this paper:

t: time

p: pressure

U: velocity vector

g: gravitational acceleration

T : temperature

μ: dynamic viscosity

Mo: morton number

N f : inverse viscosity number

Fr: froude number

Eo: eötvös number

R G: buoyancy reynolds number

σ: surface tension

D: tube diameter

θ: tube inclination angles

z: axial coordinates

r: radial coordinate

Z’: the distance from the Taylor bubble nose tip to the stable flow field afront the bubble

u z: axial component of the rising velocity

u r: radial component of the rising velocity

u: the rising velocity of the Taylor bubble

R tb: the maximum radius of the Taylor bubble

Z* : the length from the bubble nose to the stable liquid film

δ : the thickness of the stable liquid film

τ ω: the wall shear stress

L min: the length from the bubble tail to the stable flow field downstream the bubble tail

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Zuo, J., Zhang, K., Wu, S. et al. Numerical Modeling of Movements of Taylor Bubbles in Stagnant Liquid Hydrogen Fluids. Exp Tech 47, 235–252 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40799-021-00522-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40799-021-00522-9

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