Distribution of void fraction for gas-liquid slug flow in aninclined pipe

In order to investigate the effect of inclination angle on the spatial distribution of phases, experiments on gas-liquid two-phase slug flow in an inclined pipe were carried out by using the optical probe and an EKTAPRO 1000 high speed motion analyzer. It has been demonstrated that the inclination angle and the mixture velocity are important parameters to influence the distribution of void fraction for upward slug flow in the inclined pipe. At high mixture velocity, the gas phase profile is axial symmetry in the cross-section of the pipe. This is similar to that for vertical slug flow. In contrast, most of the gas phase is located near the upper pipe wall at low mixture velocity. By measuring the axial variation of void fraction along the liquid slug, it can be concluded that there is a high void fraction wake region with length of 3~4D in the front of liquid slug. In the fully developed zone of liquid slug, the peak value of the void fraction is near the upper wall.