Characteristics of bubble-induced liquid flows in a rectangular tank

Bubbly flows are frequently encountered in many industrial applications where multiphase contact is used to promote heat, mass and momentum transfer. These include applications where both chemical and physical processes occur, such as wastewater treatment and biological aeration systems. We investigated the behaviour of underwater-generated bubble swarms, which were produced at the bottom of a 1-m3 square tank from a 5-mm nozzle and allowed to rise by buoyancy in still water. Instantaneous velocity fields around the bubbles were obtained using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) seeded with 10-15-µm poly-dispersed fluorescent particles and gas flow rates ranging from 2 to 15 L/min (1.7-12.8 m/s). A continuous laser was used to obtain the time-resolved field, and a pulse laser was used to obtain the mean velocity fields. Images were captured at up to 2000 fps. After interrogation, a post-processing validation algorithm was employed to identify and remove vectors produced by bubbles and the interface, essentially producing vector fields of the liquid phase only. Proper orthogonal decomposition analysis was carried out on 1000 realisations of each gas flow case to identify dominant flow structures, and the flow was decomposed into its constituent spatial and temporal modes. We established that induced vortices in the liquid phase more clearly manifest at far streamwise locations shown by the spatial mode at lower gas flow rates and are clearer in the temporal mode at high gas flow rates. The mean streamwise and spanwise liquid velocities increased with the gas flow rate, and the streamwise bubble velocities can be well described by a top-hat profile curve. Finally, an analysis was done to estimate the bubble entrainment coefficient using the slip velocity and the gas buoyancy flux.