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The most popular mechanism of the critical heat flux (CHF) triggering is dry-out through bubble packing, which prevents the liquid inflow onto the heater. It is common knowledge that the generated upward bubble flow on the heater easily blocks a small flow path for the downward liquid inflow during pool boiling. This blocked hydrodynamic liquid flow path normally leads to dry-out and CHF on the heated surface. In the present study, we design a unique test section to assess the effect of a small flow path and the wall through the installation of a cylindrical wall close to the heater. We measure the CHF for various diameters and heights of the cylindrical wall and notice an interesting trend in the plots. Contrary to common knowledge, we find the CHF enhancement in a narrowed hydrodynamic flow path between the heater and cylindrical wall compared to the bare CHF performance. From this result, the enhancement mechanism is suggested based on the accelerated inflow bulk liquid and shortening period between growing and departing bubble by the confined wall effect. This is the first study to report on the relationship between the CHF and the diameter and height of the cylindrical wall.

In the present work, a phase-field model was developed to investigate the influence of recrystallization on bubble evolution during irradiation. Considering the interaction between bubbles and grain boundary (GB), a set of modified Cahn-Hilliard and Allen-Cahn equations, with field variables and order parameters evolving in space and time, was used in this model. Both the kinetics of recrystallization characterized in experiments and point defects generated during cascade were incorporated in the model. The bubble evolution in recrystallized polycrystalline of U–Mo alloy was also investigated. The simulation results showed that GB with a large area fraction generated by recrystallization accelerates the formation and growth of bubbles. With the formation of new grains, gas atoms are swept and collected by GBs. The simulation results of bubble size and distribution are consistent with the experimental results.

In this study, experiments of downward-facing flow boiling were conducted to investigate material effects on CHF. Experiments were conducted using aluminum, copper, and carbon steel. It was found that different materials had different CHFs. Aluminum has the biggest CHF while copper has the lowest CHF for each mass flux. After experiment, surface wettability increased and surface became rougher, which was probably due to the oxidation process during nucleate boiling. The CHF difference is likely to be related to the surface wettability, roughness and thermal effusivity, which influences the bubble behavior and in turn affects CHF. Further studies are needed to determine which factor is dominant.

Surface roughness plays a significant role in floatability of coal. In the present paper, coking coal surface was polished by three different sandpapers and the surface properties were characterized by contact angle and roughness measurements. The effect of surface roughness on floatability was investigated by adhesion force measurement system for measuring interaction forces between droplets/bubbles and coking coal surfaces with different roughness. The results showed that the contact angle decreased with increasing roughness yet the adhesion force between the water droplet and coal surface increased owing to the increased contact line and the appearance of line pinning. Maximum adhesion forces between water and surfaces were 111.70, 125.48, and 136.42 μN when the roughness was 0.23, 0.98, and 2.79 μm, respectively. In contrast, under a liquid environment, the adhesion forces between air bubble/oil droplet and coal surfaces were decreased with increasing roughness because of the restriction by water. Maximum adhesion forces of increasing roughness were 97.14, 42.76, and 17.86 μN measured at interfaces between air bubble and coal surfaces and 169.48, 145.84, and 121.02 μN between oil droplet and surfaces, respectively. Decreasing roughness could be beneficial to the spreading of oil droplets and the adhesion of bubbles which is conducive to flotation separation.

Time-frequency analysis technique is an effective analysis tool for non-stationary processes. In the field of reactor neutron noise, the time-frequency analysis method has not been thoroughly researched and widely used. This work has studied the time-frequency analysis of the reactor neutron noise experimental signals under bubble disturbance and control rod vibration. First, an experimental platform was established, and it could be employed to reactor neutron noise experiment and data acquisition. Secondly, two types of reactor neutron noise experiments were performed, and valid experimental data was obtained. Finally, time-frequency analysis was conducted on the experimental data, and effective analysis results were obtained in the low-frequency part. Through this work, it can be concluded that the time-frequency analysis technique can effectively investigate the core dynamics behavior and deepen the identification of the unstable core process.

In this paper, from a review of the size distribution of the bubbles during pool scrubbing obtained from experiments by EPRI, we apply the bubble size distributions to analyses on the decontamination factors of pool scrubbing via I-COSTA (In-Containment Source Term Analysis). We perform sensitivity studies of the bubble size on the various mechanisms of deposition of aerosol particles in pool scrubbing. We also perform sensitivity studies on the size distributions of the bubbles depending on the diameters at the nozzle exit, the molecular weights of non-condensable gases in the carrier gases, and the steam fractions of the carrier gases. We then perform analyses of LACE-ESPANA experiments and compare the numerical results to those from SPARC-90 and experimental results in order to show the effect of the bubble size distributions.

Experiments of vertically upward steam-water two-phase flow have been carried out in single-side heated narrow rectangular channel with a gap of 3 mm. Flow patterns were identified and classified through visualization directly. Slug flow was only observed at 0.2 MPa but replaced by block-bubble flow at 1.0 MPa. Flow pattern maps at the pressure of 0.2 MPa and 1.0 MPa were plotted and the difference was analyzed. The experimental data has been compared with other flow pattern maps and transition criteria. The results show reasonable agreement with Hosler's, while a wide discrepancy is observed when compared with air-water two-phase experimental data. Current criteria developed based on air-water experiments poorly predict bubble-slug flow transition due to the different formation and growth of bubbles. This work is significant for researches on heat transfer, bubble dynamics and flow instability.

Experiments are conducted to study bubble flow behavior during the instability of subcooled boiling under uniform and non-uniform transverse heating. The non-uniform heat distribution introduces non-uniform bubble generation and condensation rates on the heated surface, which is different from the uniform heating. These bubble generation and condensation characteristics introduce a non-uniform local pressure distribution in the transverse direction, which creates an extra non-uniform pressure on the flowing bubbles. Therefore, different bubble flow behavior can be observed between uniform and non-uniform heating conditions. In the uniform heating, bubble velocity fluctuations are low, and the bubbles travel straight along the axial direction. In the non-uniform heating, more fluctuation in the bubble velocity occurs at low mass flow rate and high subcooled inlet temperatures, and reverse flow is observed. Additionally, the bubbles show a zigzag trajectory when they pass through the channel, which indicates the existence of cross flow in the transverse direction.

Gas bubble nucleation and its control is one of the most important parameters in industrial foaming applications defining the physical and chemical properties of the end product. It is possible to enhance this process by adding gas bubble nucleation supporting agents. In this work, the potency of native corn and potato starch as bubble nucleating agents for low-temperature high pressure (HP) foaming applications have been evaluated at 30 barg. In a first work step, the physical properties of the starches were assessed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Washburn rise method, nitrogen adsorption, Hg porosimetry as well as light scattering and compared to those of talcum, a well know and widely used nucleating agent in non-food systems. Secondly, the effect of the addition of these starch particles on CO gas bubble nucleation in highly viscous watery hydroxy-methyl-propyl-cellulose dispersions was determined applying HP rheology. Results of the surface properties evaluation suggested that the investigated native starch particles are suitable natural nucleating agents for HP foaming applications but are less efficient than talcum particles. The critical supersaturation value of a 1 wt% HPMC dispersion was reduced from to and after the addition of 1 wt% corn and potato starch particles, respectively. The applied HP rheology technique developed to measure the critical supersaturation revealed, that the starches can compete with the talcum. These findings also allowed to validate the suitability of HP rheology to investigate gas bubble nucleation under defined shear conditions thus, enabling new insights into the mechanism of this process for low-temperature foaming applications in food and pharmaceutical product systems., Chemical Engineering Journal Advances, 9

To research the imbibition behavior of shale reservoirs, the imbibition experiments were conducted. However, clay-rich shale has small particle detachment during imbibition, which causes conventional imbibition method failure. A novel method was proposed to deal with this problem and the imbibition behavior of clay-rich shale was investigated. In conventional method, the apparent imbibed volume increases quickly at initial time and decreases sharply at late time because of particle detaching from sample. This phenomenon happened even though the samples were coated with epoxy resin, which indicated that the clay has strong swelling property. In novel method, both deionized water and different kinds of KCl solutions as well as epoxy resin were used. When deionized water was used, the apparent imbibed volume has a decreasing interval, which may be caused by bubble effect and osmotic effect. When both high KCl solution was used and sample was coated with epoxy resin, the decreasing interval disappeared. The ultimate apparent imbibed volume of higher KCl solution is lower than the lower KCl solution, which indicates that K+ restrains the clay swelling and reduces imbibed liquid. At last, the difference between apparent imbibed volume and corrected imbibed volume was discussed. The main contribution of this study is that a novel method was proposed for monitoring the imbibition behavior of clay-rich shale.

The pipeline is a convenient and safe way to transport natural gas liquids (NGLs). However, the NGL is easy to boil due to the variations of pressures and temperatures along the pipeline. The bubble lift-off diameter is an essential parameter to calculate the mass and heat transfer rates between vapor and liquid phases for the NGL two-phase saturated boiling flow. This paper proposed a novel bubble lift-off diameter model based on the force-balance principle of bubbles, which considers the effects of the pressure, shear lift force, unstable drag force, surface tension, gravity force, buoyancy force, gas-phase density, bubble volume, bubble flow velocity, and bubble growth time on the bubble’s lift-off diameters at various pipe inclination angles. A total of 136 experimental data points are applied to validate the new model. Results demonstrate that the average relative deviation (ARD) between the experimental bubble’s lift-off diameters and calculated values based on the new model is in the range from 5.75% to 29.95%. In contrast, for horizontal and vertical pipes, the minimum ARDs of seven existing models (Fritz, Kocamustaf, Zeng, Lee, Situ, Hamzekhani, Chen models) are in the range from 19.42% to 42.58%, respectively. Moreover, the in-depth force analysis results reveal that the shear lift force, buoyancy force, drag force and surface tension force are dominant factors affecting the bubble lift-off diameters in inclined pipes. The new model provides an effective method to calculate the bubble lift-off diameter in the pipe at various inclination angles, overcoming the deficiencies of most existing models that only can be applied to either horizontal or vertical pipes.

A triple bubbler sensor was tested in LiCl–KCl molten salt from 450 to 525 °C in a transparent furnace to validate thermal-expansion corrections and provide additional molten salt data sets for calibration and validation of the sensor. In addition to these tests, a model was identified and further developed to accurately determine the density, surface tension, and depth from the measured bubble pressures. A unique feature of the model is that calibration constants can be estimated using independent depth measurements, which allow calibration and validation of the sensor in an electrorefiner where the salt density and surface tension are largely unknown. This model and approach were tested using the current and previous triple bubbler data sets, and results indicate that accuracies are as high as 0.03%, 4.6%, and 0.15% for density, surface tension, and depth, respectively.

As a Lagrangian particle method, Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) method has great capability to capture interface/surface. In recent years, the multiphase flow simulation using MPS method has become one of the important directions of its developments. In this study, some key methods for multiphase flow have been introduced. The interface tension model in multiphase flow is modified to maintain the smooth of the interface and suitable for the three-phase flow. The mass transfer at immiscible liquid interface entrained by single bubble which could occur in Molten Core-Concrete Interaction (MCCI) has been investigated using this particle method. With the increase of bubble size, the height of entrainment column also increases, but the time of film rupture is slightly different. With the increase of density ratio between the two liquids, the height of entrained column decreases significantly due to the decreasing buoyancy of the denser liquid in the lighter liquid. In addition, the larger the interface tension coefficient is, the more rapidly the entrained denser liquid falls. This study validates that the MPS method has shown great performance for multiphase flow simulation. Besides, the influence of physical parameters on the mass transfer at immiscible interface has also been investigated in this study.

Recently, we have extended the kinetic theory of granular flow (KTGF) to include friction between the spherical particles and tested it in rectangular geometries. In this study, the extended KTGF implemented in cylindrical coordinates is used to model the more-commonly employed cylindrical bubbling fluidized beds. Special attention is paid to the anti-symmetric part of the velocity gradient in the solids stress tensor. For verification of the implementation, a comparison of the present model in the limit of zero friction with the original (frictionless) KTGF model was made. Subsequently, simulations of bubbling fluidized beds of inelastic particles were performed using our extended KTGF and an effective KTGF model for inelastic particles of Jenkins and Zhang. The simulation results show good agreement for the time-averaged solids volume fraction distribution and solids circulation patterns. Finally, our model is validated by predicting the individual bubble behavior in dense bubbling fluidized beds containing different granular materials in a comparison with experimental data from Verma et al. (2014). The extended KTGF leads to an improved agreement with experimental bubble data. Compared to previous work (Yang et al., 2016b, 2017c), and by introducing cylindrical coordinates, the current work demonstrates that the extended KTGF improves predictions for the temporal bubble behavior of cylindrical fluidized beds.

Film boiling is of great importance in nuclear safety as it directly influences the integrity of nuclear fuel in case of accidents involving loss of coolant. Recently, nuclear power plant safety under earthquake conditions has received much attention. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no existing studies reporting film boiling in an oscillating system. Most previous studies for film boiling were performed on stationary systems. In this study, numerical simulations were performed for saturated film boiling of water on a horizontal surface under low frequencies to investigate the effect of system oscillation on film boiling heat transfer. A coupled level-set and volume-of-fluid method was used to track the interface between the vapor and liquid phases. With a fixed oscillation amplitude, overall, heat transfer decreases with oscillation frequency. However, there is a frequency region in which heat transfer remains nearly constant. This lock-on phenomenon occurs when the oscillation frequency is near the natural bubble release frequency. With a fixed oscillation frequency, heat transfer decreases with oscillation amplitude. With a fixed maximum amplitude of the additional gravity, heat transfer is affected little by the combination of oscillation amplitude and frequency. Keywords: Film boiling, Heat transfer, Oscillating system, Earthquake, Nuclear safety

A two phase population balance is used to predict the polydispersed bubble flow and size distribution in a slab continuous casting mold and Submerged Entry Nozzle (SEN) system. Multiple Size Group (MUSIG) with a suitable breakage and coalescence model (Ansys CFX) was adopted to account for the polydispersed gas flow. Initial bubble size distribution as determined for two industrial refractories have been taken in consideration. A two way coupling model including the effect of the drag force and non-drag forces such as virtual mass force and turbulent dispersion force was considered. The results are compared with gas distribution in a 1:1 scale water — air mold model running under conditions of fluidynamic similarity to validate the model. The simulations have then been extended to describe the actual steel — argon flow, considering a thermal expansion factor for argon bubbles. The effect of gas distribution on the flow field of liquid inside the mold and other metallurgical aspects are discussed.

Nanofluids produced by dispersing nanoparticles in the base fluid have been paid wide attention due to the reported superior thermophysical properties. Such properties would probably lead to a strongly promising potential for their application. Therefore numerous experimental and theoretical studies have been carried out to investigate the heat and mass transfer performance of nanofluids in recent years. This chapter focuses on mass transfer enhancement (including membrane contactor, falling film absorption, bubble absorption, and tray column absorption) and regeneration processes utilizing nanofluids. Moreover, the dominant mechanisms (such as bubble breaking, grazing effect, and hydrodynamic effect) and effective parameters (such as type of nanoparticles or the concentration of nanofluids) on the mass transfer and regeneration processes are investigated. Also, experimental setup, maximum mass transfer enhancement, various types of nanoparticle, and experiment conditions for each process are investigated, individually. Both the advantages and disadvantages as a result of using nanofluids in the mass transfer processes are mentioned.

Self-rewetting fluids are commonly used in heat pipes, but their performance is not well understood in pool boiling. Here, we performed boiling of n-butanol-water mixtures on thin titanium foil and utilized synchronous high-speed IR and video cameras to capture transient temperature fields and bubble dynamics. At the onset of nucleate boiling, self-rewetting fluids offered higher nucleation site density and smaller bubble diameters compared to water. However, with increasing heat flux, a significant depletion of n-butanol was created in the vicinity of nucleation sites, which caused periodic temporal fluctuations in nucleation temperature and bubble evaporation energy. Average surface temperature and bubble departure diameter for self-rewetting fluids even exceeded the values of pure water. This shows that Marangoni effects cannot overcome limited mass diffusion of more volatile component towards nucleation sites in pool boiling on flat horizontal heaters. Based on our observations, the use of a self-rewetting fluid will not increase the heat transfer coefficient when compared to pure water, which is also known for conventional mixtures with negative temperature-dependent surface tension. Our experiments offer a step towards better understanding nucleate boiling of complex mixtures and a possibility for indirect evaluation of concentration variations based on synchronous high-speed video and IR thermography.

Silica is widely applied in industrial fields due to its good properties, while preparation of high-quality SiO2 by carbonization is an important way to utilize CO2. The experiment was carried out in a microbubble/bubbling experimental device, with its mass transfer kinetics of carbonization analyzed according to the pH-t curves. Under microbubble conditions, with the increasing temperature of 20∼60°C, the specific surface area, oil absorption value and particle size of silica varies at 336.80∼231.29 m2/g, 1.12∼1.81 ml/g and 16.49∼14.60 μm, respectively, which is similar as that with bubble. Aging at 20∼90 °C, they involve in the range of 35.82∼128.76 m2/g, 1.59∼2.44 ml/g and 23.15∼14.46 μm. With total concentration of solution >0.5 M, the concentration increases, the specific surface area and particle size of microbubbles are larger than those of the bubbling silica, and oil absorption value increases at 1.81∼2.44 ml/g. The kinetic analysis shows that it is more consistent with theoretical value, which can be judged as the secondary-reaction process. The microbubbles increase the CO2 utilization rate and volumetric mass transfer coefficient of carbonization by 2-4 times, while the liquid-phase mass transfer coefficient decreases. It indicates that microbubble mass transfer is achieved by significantly increasing the specific surface area.

A large number of industries use fossil fuels for the purpose of cooling and lubrication utilizing a gas stream that acts as a shearing force on the liquid surface. Decreasing the carbon footprint of these processes needs an improved understanding of the effect of liquid properties. To this end this study investigates experimentally the effect of varying surface tension and liquid viscosity on the bubble generation and film statistics in a gas-sheared liquid flow. The experiments were conducted in a horizontal rectangular channel using high speed imaging in conjunction with the Brightness-Based Laser-induced Fluorescence technique (BBLIF) to measure film thickness over an area with a spatial resolution of 40 μ m and a temporal resolution of 10 kHz. Two butanol–water solutions were used to give reduced surface tensions (namely 0.049 N/m and 0.04 N/m) compared to our previously-studied water only value. Also, two glycerol-water solutions were chosen to yield surface tension values closer to those of an oil of interest (namely 1.4 cP and 1.9 cP). The results show that compared to water, an increase in film thickness and a decrease in the disturbance wave velocity was observed with either the reduction in the surface tension or increase in the liquid viscosity. The frequency and size of the waves were found to be dominated by the liquid surface tension. Moreover, surface tension was found to have more of an effect on aeration as compared to viscosity. The bubble velocity was found to decrease with increase in viscosity, while it increases with decrease in surface tension. It is suggested that these changes would affect heat transfer and hence should be studied in more detail.

Gas injection into a slab continuous casting mold is a common practice as it enables long casting sequences by reducing SEN clogging. However, too much gas injection can generate lots of bubbles, and bubbles formed inside the mold are also responsible for the occurrence of various quality defects such as deterioration of steel cleanliness, reoxidation of liquid steel, and occurrence of sliver and blister defects, etc. Mean bubble size is a key parameter and controlling it can resolve/reduce these quality issues. Operating parameters such as gas flow rate and liquid flow rate are the major factors affecting the mean bubble size. Two-phase water modeling​ experiments were performed to generate bubbles in the mold, and the mean bubble diameter was captured using various gas and liquid flow rates. Clear images of bubbles were recorded using a high-speed high-resolution camera along with the application of shadowgraphy. Bubble images were processed using an image processing software, ImageJ to obtain bubble characteristics, and Sauter mean diameter was calculated for each operating condition. Advance machine learning techniques such as Multilinear Regression (MLR), Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were used on the experimental data to predict the combined effect of these operating parameters on the mean bubble diameter. All four ML techniques were compared considering the values of cross-validated adjusted R2, and a performance metric is presented to compare the suitability of ML techniques in this case.

Encapsulating powder ingredients into hydrogel with programmable release ability is highly demanded in many fields including food engineering, medical and healthcare fields. However, directly adding water-insoluble powders into pre-gel solution makes the mixture susceptible to clogging problems during processing, thus limiting the loading rate. To address this problem, a new way to encapsulate water-insoluble powder ingredients without addition of any organic solvent named bubble-assisted encapsulation method is developed in this study. The powders were firstly encapsulated in hydrogel bubbles and further dispersed by T-shaped microfluidic flow to form the core/shell-structured powder in hydrogel microcapsules (P/H microcapsules). The obtained P/H microcapsules had an exceptionally high loading rate of water-insoluble powders up to 94.76%. The P/H microcapsules were freeze-dried for long-term storage, and meanwhile, the as-prepared microcapsules were able to swell rapidly to soft state before use. Moreover, with the well-defined core–shell structure, the P/H microcapsules were endowed with dual release capabilities to external stimuli. The bubble-assisted encapsulation method that enables direct dense encapsulation of powder ingredients at a high loading rate appears promising for water-insoluble food or pharmaceutical ingredients delivery.

The growth mechanism of anodic TiO2 nanotubes has been a hot topic in recent years. The classical field-assisted dissolution (FAD) theory holds that the atmospheric pressure does not affect the growth of nanotubes, while the oxygen bubble model holds that the decrease of pressure is beneficial to the nanotube growth. In order to verify the oxygen bubble model, anodizing processes at three different pressures (0.1 MPa, 0.05 MPa and 0.005 MPa), three different currents and three different NH4F concentrations were studied. To the best our knowledge, some interesting results are obtained which cannot be obtained at standard atmospheric pressure (1 atm = 0.1 MPa). (1) In the same NH4F electrolyte, the same current density and the same temperature, the reduction of anodizing atmospheric pressure can improve the growth rate of TiO2 nanotubes. (2) Under the condition of the same temperature and current density, with the increase of NH4F concentration (0.3 wt%, 0.4 wt% and 0.5 wt%), the porosity of the nanotubes increases, and the growth rate of the nanotubes decreases obviously. These findings can serve as counterevidence to the FAD theory.

As a source for third-generation biofuel, microalgae can assist island countries to overcome their energy crisis. In this study, a novel photobioreactor having three segments is designed and Synechococcus HS-9 growth in the photobioreactors with and without a baffle is compared. The aims of this study are to investigate how the baffle influences bubble size, distribution, and velocity, to explain the bubble coalescence phenomena, and verify the effect of the baffle on Synechococcus HS-9 growth. The results showed that bubble size distribution in the photobioreactors paralleled the increasing air flow rate. At a flow rate of 1.0 L/min, most bubbles had a diameter of 200–400 μm; however, at 2.5 L/min, the typical size was 1400–2000 μm. Bubble velocity was observed through imaging techniques. The intake air flow rate of 1 LPM has a mass transfer coefficient value of 0.00075 m/s for the photobioreactor without the baffle and 0.00089 m/s for the baffle-bearing photobioreactor. The Sauter mean diameters at three different heights (A, B and C section) in the photobioreactors were 675 μm, 1001 μm, and 1125 μm. Synechococcus HS-9 growth was 2.17 times higher in the baffle-bearing photobioreactor than that in the photobioreactor without the baffle.

The removal of the adsorbed oil droplet is critical to deoiling treatment of oil-bearing solid waste. Ultrasonic cavitation is regarded as an extremely useful method to assist the oil droplets desorption in the deoiling treatment. In this paper, the effects of cavitation micro-jets on the oil droplets desorption were studied. The adsorbed states of oil droplets in the oil-contaminated sand were investigated using a microscope. Three representative absorbed states of the oil droplets can be summarized as: (1) the individual oil droplet adsorbed on the particle surface (2) the clustered oil droplets adsorbed on the particle surface; (3) the oil droplet adsorbed in a gap between particles. The micro-jet generation during the bubble collapse near a rigid wall under different acoustic pressure amplitudes at an ultrasonic frequency of 20 kHz was investigated numerically. The desorption processes of the oil droplets at the three representative absorbed states under micro-jets were also simulated subsequently. The results showed that the acoustic pressure has a great influence on the velocity of micro-jet, and the initial diameter of cavitation bubbles is significant for the cross-sectional area of micro-jets. The wall jet caused by a micro-jet impacting on the solid wall is the most important factor for the removal of the absorbed oil droplets. The oil droplet is broken by the jet impinging, and then it breaks away from the solid wall due to the shear force generated by the wall jet. In addition to a higher sound pressure, the cavitation bubble at a larger initial diameter is more important for the desorption of the clustered oil droplets. Conversely, the micro-jet generated by the cavitation bubble at a smaller initial diameter (0.1 mm) is more appropriate for the desorption of the oil droplet in a narrow or sharp-angled gap.

This experimental study investigated how changes in the water flow rate affected the number and size of microbubbles using venturi with equal entry and exit angles of 30°. The water flow rate ranged between 10 and 18 m 3 / h . Photos of microbubbles were taken with a digital camera in a visualized section that was specifically installed to store a certain amount of water to measure microbubble size and the number of microbubbles. The experimental results indicated that when the water flow rate increased, the airflow rate also increased. The microbubble size tended to decrease when the water flow rate increased; the sizes obtained were in the range of 50–130 μ m . The amount of air bubbles tended to increase when the water flow rate increased.

This paper presents the results of a 3-D numerical simulation of a freely bubbling fluidized bed, based on the Eulerian¿Lagrangian approach, using the software Barracuda (CPFD-Barracuda). The main results obtained were assessed in terms of frequency analysis, bubble pierced length, bubble size, bubble passage frequency and bubble velocity. The results obtained were also compared with experimental data obtained in a 3-D fluidized bed using pressure and optical probes, and with the numerical results using the more common Eulerian-Eulerian approach, implemented in the commercial software Fluent (TFM-Fluent). The results show that CPFD-Barracuda satisfactorily predicts the global behaviour of bubbling beds with a low computational cost, although it computes smaller bubble sizes and lower bubble velocities than TFM-Fluent and experiments. Additionally, the spectra of pressure and particle volume fraction obtained with CPFD-Barracuda resemble those from the experiments and the TFM-Fluent simulations, but with a larger contribution of lower frequencies. The peaks of the pressure spectra from CPFD-Barracuda are close to those from the experiments and the TFM-Fluent simulations, whereas those in the solid volume spectra seem to be underestimated by CPFD-Barracuda. The results also indicate that the particle fraction threshold value chosen to distinguish bubbles contours notably influences the results of the bubble characteristics, especially for TFM-Fluent, whereas CPFD-Barracuda is less sensitive to this threshold value. This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Projects ENE2016-78908-R and RTI2018-096664- B-C21 (MICINN, FEDER/UE)) of the Spanish Government, the Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha (project SBPLY/17/180501/000412) and the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades - Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) (RED2018-102431-T).

Free bubbling in flat sheet MBRs has been widely used in water treatment to control membrane fouling, however, the associated aeration cost discourages its wider application. To counter this drawback an innovative design of the aeration system is proposed and its evaluation indicates significantly high potential. The guiding aim is the establishment of sufficient shear stress in all membrane channels at an economical specific air demand (SADm). Based upon a validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study, hydrodynamic features including shear stress, bubble size and the distribution of bubbles across neighboring channels were predicted for two designs. For both a mini 100-sheets commercial FSMBR (size of plates 448 mm × 245 mm) and a full-scale standard unit with 1800 mm × 490 mm plates, it was shown that sufficient hydrodynamic effect is induced with our modified free aeration design in a manner that moves beyond seeking to achieve bland uniformity between channels. The optimal configuration featured a channel gap at 5 mm and an aerator with an additional large side nozzle operating at an inlet velocity of 2.6 m/s. Such an arrangement would cover 12 channels. Through optimization the air consumption was successfully reduced giving a SADm of 0.28 Nm3m-2h-1, corresponding to 46% reduction with respect to traditional industrial usage of 0.51 Nm3m-2h-1.

Highlights • Effect of surface tension on acoustic cavitation is studied by adding surfactant. • Micro bubble in certain size is generated in liquid with different surface tension σ. • Acoustic-driven bubble evolution near a rigid wall in liquid with various σ are recorded. • Effect mechanisms of σ on bubble dynamics in ultrasonic field are discussed. • Mechanisms of lower σ on efficiency increase of ultrasonic applications are analyzed., Acoustic cavitation is a very important hydrodynamic phenomenon, and is often implicated in a myriad of industrial, medical, and daily living applications. In these applications, the effect mechanism of liquid surface tension on improving the efficiency of acoustic cavitation is a crucial concern for researchers. In this study, the effects of liquid surface tension on the dynamics of an ultrasonic driven bubble near a rigid wall, which could be the main mechanism of efficiency improvement in the applications of acoustic cavitation, were investigated at the microscale level. A synchronous high-speed microscopic imaging method was used to clearly record the temporary evolution of single acoustic cavitation bubble in the liquids with different surface tension. Meanwhile, the bubble dynamic characteristics, such as the position and time of bubble collapse, the size and stability of the bubbles, the speed of bubble boundaries and the micro-jets, were analyzed and compared. In the case of the single bubbles near a rigid wall, it was found that low surface tension reduces the stability of the bubbles in the liquid medium. Meanwhile, the bubbles collapse earlier and farther from the rigid wall in the liquids with lower surface tension. In addition, the surface tension has no significant influence on the speed of the first micro-jet, but it can substantially increase the speed of second and the third micro-jets after the first collapse of the bubble. These effects of liquid surface tension on the bubble dynamics can explain the mechanism of surfactants in numerous fields of acoustic cavitation for facilitating its optimization and application.

Cavitation damage is a micro, high-speed, multi-phase complex phenomenon caused by the near-wall bubble group collapse. The current numerical simulation method of cavitation mainly focuses on the collapse impact of a single cavitation bubble. The large-scale simulation of the cavitation bubble group collapse is difficult to perform and has not been studied, to the best of our knowledge. In this study, the equivalent model of impact loading of acoustic bubble collapse micro-jets is proposed to study the cavitation erosion damage of materials. Based on the theory of the micro-jet and the water hammer effect of the liquid-solid impact, an equivalent model of impact loading of a single acoustic bubble collapse micro-jet is established under the principle of deformation equivalence. Since the acoustic bubbles can be considered uniformly distributed in a small enough area, an equivalent model of impact loading of multiple acoustic bubble collapse micro-jets in a micro-segment can be derived based on the equivalent results of impact loading of a single acoustic bubble collapse micro-jet. In fact, the equivalent methods of cavitation damage loading for single and multiple near-wall acoustic bubble collapse micro-jets are formed. The verification results show the law of cavitation deformation of concrete using equivalent loading is consistent with that of a micro-jet simulation, and the average relative errors and the mean square errors are insignificant. The equivalent method of impact loading proposed in this paper has high accuracy and can greatly improve the calculation efficiency, which provides technical support for numerical simulation of concrete cavitation.