Experimental Investigation of Void Fraction in Horizontal Air-water Flow Through FeCrAlY Foam

The paper presents the experimental results relevant to gas void fractions under conditions of the two-phase air-water flow through a horizontal pipe which was packed with open cell steel foam. The experimental data were used to evaluate whether the models were valid which had been suggested for prediction of volumetric phase void fractions in two-phase gas-liquid mixtures flowing in channels with porous packing materials. The verified mathematical models in most cases turned out incapable of predicting the volumetric phase void fractions with the acceptable accuracy. Among the analysed methods, the best agreement of experimental and calculated gas void fraction values was obtained for the model by Ford [17].