Instrumentation avancée en écoulement diphasique : rêve ou réalité ?

Advanced instrumentation for two-phase: flow dream or reality?

Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, Grenoble, DTP/SMTH/LATA

Abstract

The design and optimisation of industrial equipment could be made easier if validated computer multiphase flow software would exist. Two-phase flow model development is indeed stalled due to the lack of appropriate measuring techniques. Among the most necessary ones there are the local instantaneous diagnostic tools, obviously because computer software is based on average equations which require appropriate closure. The validation of these closure relations requires at least the experimental knowledge of the values of the local phase velocity, the interfacial area and phase fractions as well as some estimate of the velocity fluctuations. This paper reports recent progress in this field which have been presented at the last OECD-sponsored meeting on two-phase flow instrumentation held in March 1997 at Santa Barbara, CA (USA).