| Abstract: | The two‐phase flow pattern for air‐water mixtures inside a 6.9 mm U‐tube is reported to have curvature ratios of 3?7.1. At a lower total mass flux of 50 kg/m2·s and a quality of 0.1, or at a larger curvature ratio of 7.1, no influence on the flow patterns is seen. However, if the curvature ratio is reduced to 3, the flow pattern in the recovery region just after the return bend is temporally turned from stratified flow into annular flow. For a quality larger than 0.4, the annular flow pattern prevails in the entire tube. For G = 400 kg/m2·s and x < 0.01, the size of the plug in the downstream is usually larger than that in the upstream due to the coalesce in the return bend. This coalescence phenomenon continues to further increase the total mass flux at the lower quality region. For a total mass flux above 500 kg/m2·s, the bubbly flow pattern in the upstream region may become intermittent. |
