Hydrodynamics of gas-liquid Taylor flow in rectangular microchannels

Thomas Abadie (1, 2) , Joelle Aubin (2) , Dominique Legendre (1) , Catherine Xuereb (2)

1 IMFT - Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse
2 LGC - Laboratoire de Génie Chimique

The effect of fluid properties and operating conditions on the generation of gas-liquid Taylor flow in microchannels has been investigated experimentally and numerically. Visualisation experiments and 2D numerical simulations have been performed to study bubble and slug lengths, liquid film hold-up and bubble velocities. The results show that the bubble and slug lengths increase as a function of the gas and liquid flow rate ratios. The bubble and slug lengths follow the model developed by Garstecki et al. (Lab chip 6:437-446, 2006) and van Steijn et al. (Chem Eng Sci 62:7505-7514, 2007), however, the model coefficients appear to be dependent on the liquid properties and flow conditions in some cases. The ratio of the bubble velocity to superficial two-phase velocity is close to unity, which confirms a thin liquid film under the assumption of a stagnant liquid film. Numerical simulations confirm the hypothesis of a stagnant liquid film and provide information on the thickness of the liquid film.

Mots clés: Microchannel; Gas-liquid; Taylor flow; Microreactor; Visualisation experiments; Numerical simulation

Domaines: Génie chimique; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Thomas Abadie, Joelle Aubin, Dominique Legendre, Catherine Xuereb. Hydrodynamics of gas-liquid Taylor flow in rectangular microchannels. Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, 2012, vol. 12, pp. 355-369. ⟨10.1007/s10404-011-0880-8⟩. ⟨hal-00878398⟩