A Mechanism on Liquid-Phase Turbulence Modulation by Microbubbles

Although bubbly flows have been extensively applied to many industrial fields, efficiency improvements of bubbly equipments are greatly limited due to the absence of accurate understandings of liquid turbulence modulation by bubbles. In order to obtain an accurate mechanism explanation, an Euler-Lagrange two-way method was used to investigate and analyze deeply the liquid turbulence modulation by microbubbles in this paper. The present investigation shows that for the bubbly flow laden with microbubbles the liquid turbulence modulation is mainly caused by the drag force, and the turbulence modulation level is related to the microbubble diameter. A detailed mechanism explanation on the physical phenomenon was presented here.