Signal characteristics of IR transceiver pair during two phase flow of varying liquid film thickness in a mini-channel

Abstract

Taylor bubble/slug flow is a type of multiphase flow that is predominant in many natural and industrial applications. A thorough understanding of two phase flows and void fraction measurement is essential to understand thermal hydraulic behavior during accident conditions in nuclear reactors. The performance of mini-reactors/microreactors and microthrusters requires a complete knowledge on shape and size of the void fraction distribution, which governs the flow characteristics in mini-channels/microchannels. The present study focuses on analyzing the signal characteristics of two IR transceivers simultaneously during two-phase bubble/slug regime having varying liquid film thickness. The transceivers are positioned at 90° and 0° to the axis of a tube of 1.5 mm diameter and 2.5 mm thickness. The experimental signal output is compared with the results obtained from a numerical model developed using COMSOL Multiphysics package. The present study exposes the critical parameters that need to be considered while developing a 3D reconstruction methodology based on IR transceivers for volumetric void fraction measurement.

Keywords:

• IR transceiver
• liquid film thickness
• Ray optics
• Taylor flow
• two-phase flow

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully thank and acknowledge the financial grant provided by DST/SERB Grant No. YSS/2015/000029 to successfully carrying out this work.