A note on pressure drop for the cross-flow of power-law liquids and air/power law liquid mixtures past a bundle of circular rods

The steady flow of non-Newtonian polymer solutions on their own and together with air transverse to a bundle of circular rods, has been studied experimentally. In particular, the frictional pressure drop has been measured as a function of non-Newtonian power-law constants, flow rates, voidage of bundles and the input fraction of air over wide ranges of conditions as: power-law flow behaviour index, 0.5 to 1; voidage values of 0.78 and 0.87-0.88; air velocity (superficial), 0.09 to 0.28 m/s and liquid velocity (superficial) 0.018 to 0.5 m/s. While the single phase flow results for power-law liquids are in excellent agreement with an existing equation, the two-phase pressure drop results are also in accordance with the form of the well-known Lockhart-Martinelli correlation. Based on these results, it is suggested that a value of 5-10 for the Reynolds number based on rod diameter marks the limit of the laminar flow in such systems. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.