Study air–water system in horizontal loop geometry

To enhance the understanding of hydrodynamic of air–water multi-phase flow inside a toroidal geometry, experiments were carried out in horizontal torus reactor. Compared with vertical flow, the flow in horizontal milli torus reactor was characterized by one additional flow pattern. In vertical position two flow regimes are considered: not-dispersed and dispersed flow while in horizontal position three flow regimes have been distinguished: stratified flow, dispersed flow and mixed flow regimes. The mixing time is measured by a conductimetric method as described by (Benkhelifa et al., 2000). The effect of both superficial gas velocities and impeller rotation speeds has been studied. The mixing time has been decreased by increasing both the superficial gas velocity and the impeller rotation speed and has been shorter than the one given for the horizontal configuration. The axial dispersion inside the reactor was modelled by the Zhang's model. The obtained results are in a good agreement with Zhang's model.