A new database on upwards air-water flow in a large pipe

A new database for stationary upward air-water flows in a vertical pipe with an inner diameter of 195.3 mm using the wire-mesh sensor technology is presented. During the experiments the sensor was always mounted on the top of the test section while the distance between gas injection and measuring plane was varied to up to 18 different L/D by using gas injection chambers at different vertical positions. The gas was injected via holes in the pipe wall. The pressure was kept at 0.25 MPa (absolute) at the location of the active gas injection while the temperature was constant at 30°C +-1K. This procedure exactly represents the evolution of the flow along the pipe, as it would be observed for an injection at a constant height position and a shifting of the measurement plane. The experiments were done for 48 combinations of air and water superficial velocities varying from 0.04 m/s to 1.6 m/s for water and 0.0025 m/s to 3.2 m/s for air. From the raw data time averaged data as: radial gas volume fraction profiles, bubble size distributions, radial volume fraction profiles decomposed according to the bubble size and the radial profiles of the gas velocity were calculated. All data were checked regarding their plausibility. They are characterized by a high resolution in space what makes them suitable for the development and validation of closure models for CFD-codes (e.g. for models on bubble forces or on coalescence and break-up) as well as for the test and validation of approaches for poly-dispersed flow.