Countercurrent gas-liquid flow in parallel vertical tubes

Abstract The subject of this paper is the flow between an upper reservoir, containing a liquid, and a lower reservoir, containing a gas, interconnected by parallel vertical tubes. The characteristics of the combined system are predicted from a knowledge of the behavior of flow in individual tubes. Numerous modes of possible operation are described analytically and demonstrated experimentally. The effects of system geometry, changes in gas supply characteristics, operating procedure and two-phase flow regimes on the transitions between modes and system stability are presented. Predictions are made for the limiting case of a large number of identical parallel channels.