A STUDY ON THE STRATIFIED HORIZONTAL COUNTERCURRENT 2-PHASE FLOW

This paper provides theoretical and experimental investigations on horizontal counter-current gas-liquid flow for the purpose of characterizing flow patterns, and proposes a theoretical criterion for the onset of slug flow. The experiments are carried out with four kinds of test sections. The onset of slug flow is observed and a flow pattern map is made. The model used in the present paper includes viscosity and inertia of fluid. The viscous instability theory predicts that the critical gas velocities of counter-current flow are lower than those given by the inviscid theory and higher than those for concurrent flow. It is also shown that the contribution of interfacial shear stress is important to explicate the mechanism of slug formation. © 1990.