Near-Horizontal, Two-Phase Flow Patterns of Nitrogen and Hydrogen at Low Mass Heat and Flux (on CD-ROM)

One reason for NASA's interest in cryogenic two-phase flow with low mass and heat flux is the need to design spacecraft heat exchangers used for vaporizing cryogenic propellants. The CD-ROM provides digitized movies of particular flow patterns observed in experimental work. The movies have been provided in (QuickTime9Trademark) format, encoded at 320w x 240h pixels, 15 fps, using the Sorenson(Trademark) Video Codec for compression. Experiments were conducted to obtain data on the two-phase (liquid and vapor) flow behavior of cryogenic nitrogen and hydrogen under low mass and heat flux conditions. Tests were performed in normal gravity with a 1.5 degree up flow configuration. View ports in the apparatus permitted visual observation of the two-phase flow patterns. Computer codes to predict flow patterns were developed from theoretical/empirical models reported in the literature. Predictions from the computer codes were compared with experimental flow pattern observations. Results are presented employing the traditional two-dimensional flow pattern map format using the liquid and gas superficial velocities as coordinates. In general, the agreement between the experimental results and the analytical predictive methods is reasonably good. Small regions of the flow pattern maps are identified where the models are deficient as a result of neglecting phase change phenomena. Certain regions of the maps were beyond the range of the experiments and could not be completely validated. Areas that could benefit from further work include modeling of the transition from separated flow, collection of additional data in the bubble and annular flow regimes, and collection of experimental data at other inclination angles, tube diameters and high heat flux.