An investigation on the bubble transportation of a two-stage series venturi bubble generator

Abstract In this paper, we designed a new venturi bubble generator, which mainly consist of two serial rectangular perspex venturi channels with the same geometrical dimension. Visualization experimental method combined with digital image analysis was adopted to study the motion, deformation and breakup process of bubbles when the micro-bubble generator was installed vertically. The bubble foaming frequency which is defined as the amount of forming bubbles within one second from the air injection hole was significantly enhanced with the increase of water flow rate, but was not sensitively affected by the air flow rate. The discrete bubbles moved in a two-stage venturi channel and experienced collapse or breakup in the divergent section. The Sauter mean diameter of bubbles which recorded in each divergent outlet decreased gradually. The Reynolds numbers of water had a significant effect on the breakup characteristics of bubbles. With the increasing of Re, the bubbles experienced binary breakage and multiple breakup successively. Under the effect of complex turbulence vortex, the bubbles presented different breakup patterns in each stage. When Reth > 19793, the bubble breakup ratio of the first stage divergent section was larger than that of the second stage, and the difference of the generated bubble Sauter mean diameter in each divergent outlet was minimized accordingly. The surface stability of the daughter bubble was enhanced, and it was difficult to breakup significantly under the effect of recirculation flow. The numerical simulation results by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) indicated that the area of the vortex was increased for larger second stage divergent angle, which intensify the phase interaction and promote the possibility of sub-micron bubble breakup.