A method for bubble volume calculating in vertical two-phase flow

The movement of bubble is a basic subject in gas-liquid two-phase flow research. A method for calculating bubble volume which is one of the most important characters in bubble motion research was proposed. A suit of visualized experimental device was designed and set up. Single bubble rising in stagnant liquid in a rectangular tank was studied using the high-speed video system. Bubbles generated by four orifice with different diameter (1mm, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm) were recorded respectively. Sequences of recorded high-speed images were processed by digital image processing method, such as image noise remove, binary image transform, bubble filling, and so on. then, Several parameters could be obtained from the processed image. Bubble area, equivalent diameter, bubble velocity, bubble acceleration are all indispensable in bubble volume calculating. In order to get the force balance equation, forces that work on bubble along vertical direction, including drag force, virtual mass force, buoyancy, gravity and liquid thrust, were analyzed. Finally, the bubble volume formula could be derived from the force balance equation and bubble parameters. Examples were given to shown the computing process and results. Comparison of the bubble volume calculated by geomettic method and the present method have shown the superiority of the proposed method in this paper.