The flow patterns of bubble plume in an MBBR

The flow patterns of the gas-liquid two-phase flow in a Moving-Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) have a critical effect upon the mass transfer by the convection. Bubble plumes promote unsteadily fluctuating two-phase flows during the aeration. This article studies the unsteady structure of bubble plumes through experiments. The time-serial bubble plume images in various cases of the tank are analyzed. The Recursive Cross Correlation-Particle Image Velocimetry (RCC-PIV) is used to calculate the velocities in those cases, and then the time-serial vortex, the total turbulence intensity, the time-serial streamline are obtained. It is shown that the aspect ratio and the void fraction are the dominant factors influencing the unsteady structure of bubble plumes. When the aspect ratio is unity and the void fraction is high, the bubble plumes see a symmetrical vortex structure with a long residence time, which is beneficial for optimizing the aeration system and enhancing the applied range of bubble plumes.