Conditions for a Pipe to Run Full When Discharging Liquid Into a Space Filled With Gas

Abstract

Experiments were performed with water discharging into air from horizontal and vertical tubes of several diameters. The horizontal tubes discharged into a variable space between vertical plates. The effects of length/diameter ratio and the shape of the end of the tube were investigated for the case of vertical tubes. In each case the conditions for the pipes to run full were associated with the formation and washout of large gas bubbles resembling those occurring in the slug flow regime of two-phase flow. The data for horizontal tubes were successfully correlated with some simple limiting theories and dimensionless representations. The vertical tube results were influenced by stability phenomena and nonsymmetrical flow patterns; as a result only a partial understanding was obtained.