Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.
An experimental investigation of dividing flow rates and
pressure drops in a plexiglas tee junction with horizontal inlet,
run, and branch sides using air-water mixtures has been
performed. The branch stream is orthogonal to the inlet and run
streams. The pipes forming the tee junction are about 1 m long,
their inner diameter is 10 mm.
The flow loop was supplied with compressed air and water
through a mixing tee, at 1.5 bar and approximately ambient
temperature. Air flow rate ranges from 0.3 to 9 Nl/s, water flow
rate from 14.5 to 58 g/s, air superficial velocity from 1.5 to 47
m/s, water superficial velocity from 0.2 to 0.7 m/s and flow
quality from 0.6% to 43%. The extraction ratio (branch flow
rate / inlet flow rate) ranges from 0 to 1. Intermittent (bubble
and slug flow) and annular flow patterns, as well as transition
flow patterns have been obtained.
Experimental values of flow rate, phases superficial
velocity, extraction ratio and pressure drops across the tee
junction pipes are here reported. Pressure drop test results
across the inlet and branch pipes have also been compared with
predicted ones. A new pressure drop correlation have been
derived from test data.
