Experimental Study on the Effect of Surface Tension on Void Fraction and Frictional Pressure Drop of an Air-Liquid Two-Phase Flow in a Horizontal Flat Narrow Rectangular Channel

Air-liquid two-phase flow in a horizontal flat capillary rectangular channel has been studied to clarify the effects of surface tension on the flow phenomena, such as flow patterns, holdup and frictional pressure drop and so on. The concentrations of surfactant solution were 0, 10, 50 and 100 ppm and the surface tension of each solution was reduced to about 34mN/m from that of pure water of about 72mN/m. The dimension of the channel used was 10.0 mm×1.0 mm. The drag reduction by mixing the surfactant was examined in both the single phase flow and the two-phase flow. The experimental data of void fraction and two-phase frictional pressure drop were compared with the respective correlations which were previously proposed by the other researchers. Finally, we proposed new correlations of two-phase frictional pressure drop in which the effect of surface tension and the aspect ratio of cross section of channel were taken into account.