Earthquake is one of the most serious phenomena for safety of a nuclear power plant. Therefore, nuclear reactors were contracted considering structural safety for a big earthquake. In a nuclear reactor, the gas-liquid two-phase flow is the one of primary factor of the property and bubbly or plug flow behavior is important issue to evaluate of safety. However, the influence of an earthquake vibration on the gas-liquid two-phase flow inside the nuclear power plant is not understood enough. For example, the bubbly flow behavior under the flow rate fluctuation caused by the earthquake acceleration is not clear. It is necessary to clear the two-phase flow behavior under the earthquake conditions. To develop the prediction technology of two-phase flow dynamics under the earthquake acceleration, the detailed two-phase flow simulation code with an advanced interface tracking method, TPFIT was expanded to the two-phase flow simulation under earthquake accelerating conditions. In the present study, the objective is to clarify the behavior of the gas-liquid two-phase flow under the earthquake conditions. Especially, the bubble behavior in the two-phase flow, a diameter, shape and velocity of bubbles which are expected to be influenced by the oscillation of the earthquake is investigated. In this experiment, the flow was bubbly flow and/or plug flow in a horizontal circular pipe. The working fluids were water and nitrogen gas. The nitrogen gas from gas cylinder was injected into the water through a nozzle and bubbly flow was generated at a mixer. The water was driven by a pump and the flow rate fluctuation was given by a reciprocating piston attached to the main flow loop. Main frequency of earthquakes is generally between 0.5Hz and 10Hz. Thus the frequency of the flow rate fluctuation in the experiment also was taken between 0.5Hz and 10Hz. The behavior of horizontal gas-liquid two-phase flow under the flow rate fluctuation was investigated by image processing using a high-speed video camera and PIV at test section. The pressure sensors were installed at the inlet of the mixer and the outlet of the test section. As the result, the bubble behavior mechanism under the flow rate fluctuation was obtained. In addition, the acceleration of a bubble and the pressure gradient in the pipe was synchronized under all frequency conditions. The prediction results by TPFIT were compared with the experimental results. They show good agreement on the flow field around a bubble and the bubble behavior.Copyright © 2014 by ASME