Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988

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Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

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Experimentally investigating the flow characteristics of airlift pumps T

operating in gas-liquid-solid flow
⁎
Zhineng Wanga,b,c, , Yingjian Dengb, Yang Pana, Yongping Jinc, Fei Huangd
a
School of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China
c
National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Marine Mineral Resources Exploration Equipment and Safety Technology, Hunan University of Science and Technology,
Xiangtan, Hunan 411201, China
d
The SAWS Laboratory of Prevention and Controlling the Roof, Coal and Gas Outburst in Coal Mine of South China, Hunan University of Science and Technology,
Xiangtan 411201, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Experiment were conducted to investigated the flow characteristics of airlift pumps operating in gas-liquid-solid
Airlift pumps three phase flow by employing a high-speed camera. The results showed that an intermittent flow consisted of
Gas-liquid-solid flow film and liquid slug appeared in airlift pumps with a flow frequency of 1.5–2.6 Hz. The portion of slug body
Flow structure directly determined the performance of airlift pumps due to a large particle concentration. In practical en-
Frequency
gineering, some methods for increasing the portion of slug body could be used for better pump performance.

1. Introduction performance. Kassab [5] experimentally investigated the performance

Airlift pump has been widely used for lifting toxic or corrosive
substance in chemical industries, conveying manganese nodules in
deep-sea mining, lifting slurries in sewage treatment since the begin-
ning of the twentieth century [1,2]. This pump has a simple structure
and it mainly consisted of a vertical pipe, partially submerged into the
lifted liquid. Compressor air was injected into the bottom of rising pipe
resulting in a high buoyancy force for lifting slurries. Compared with
other pumps, airlift pump was very economic and reliable, because it
had no moving parts and no need for lubrication. Even though, airlift
pumps had many advantages than that of other pumps, a big problem
still existed that its pumping efficient was still not high enough, espe-
cially under a low static liquid level, compared with other mechanical
pumps.
Most of researchers tried to improve the performance of airlift pump
by optimizing the geometry, operating parameters or choosing some
proper air-injectors. Hanafizadeh [3] numerically investigated the effect
of step geometry in airlift pumps on the pumping performance. He
found that step geometry with an abrupt increase in cross sectional area
can keep pump retaining in slug regime and greatly enhance the liquid
superficial velocity. Fujimoto [4] experimentally investigated the effect
of local bends on the pump performance using six types of rising pipe
with S-shaped portions. And he found that a larger inclination angle of
S-shaped portion gave rise to a larger reduction of pumping
of airlift pump operating at nine submergence ratios and found that
pump efficiency increased with submergence ratio. Ahmed [6,7] pre-
sented a comprehensive experimental investigation on the effect of air
injection methods on the performance of airlift pumps. He found that
the pulsating mode of air injection could control the intermittent flow
pattern in the pump riser and consequently was able to keep the pump
operating within the best efficiency range. The above researchers ex-
perimentally measure the flow rates of output liquid or solid and tried
to give a lot of suggestions for improving the pump performance. But it
was not enough to totally understand the pump performance because
some other important parameters, such as, volumetric fractions of gas,
or particle, pressure drop, and the flow structure of gas-liquid-solid flow
were still unclear to us.
The gas fraction in gas-liquid two phase flow could be measured by
conductivity probe due to the different electric conductivity. But, for
gas-liquid-solid three phase flow, it was very hard to measure the vo-
lumetric fractions by conductivity probe, because there was a problem
for distinguish the electric conductivity of gas, liquid and solid. Thus,
there was still no report on the volumetric fraction of particle in airlift
pump until now. Recently, Tighzert [8] measured the gas volumetric
fraction in airlift pump operating in gas-liquid two phase flow, by using
quick closing value method and he found that the gas volumetric
fraction decreased with the increase of submergence ratio. But the
quick closing value method was not fit for gas-liquid-solid three phase

⁎
Corresponding author at: School of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China.
E-mail address: wzn101315@163.com (Z. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2019.109988
Received 6 August 2019; Received in revised form 22 October 2019; Accepted 6 November 2019
Available online 09 November 2019
0894-1777/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Z. Wang, et al.
flow, because, it greatly affected the hydrodynamic of particle flow
when stopping the mixture flow by closing the values. Moreover, the
measured value was a transient one and extremely unstable, which
greatly depended on the measured distance between the two con-
trollable values. In fact, the particle volumetric fraction could be the-
oretically derived from its rue velocity and superficial velocity, as said
by Kassab [9] and Yoshinaga [10], who proposed a correlation for
particle volumetric fraction and employed this correlation in the
modeling of airlift pump. Both Kassab [9] and Yoshinaga [10] showed
that the predicted solid and liquid superficial velocity could fit well
with the corresponding experimental data. Thus, we believed that the
correlation for particle volumetric fraction proposed by Kassab and
Yoshinaga was reasonable and meaningful for estimating the particle
volumetric fraction in three-phase flow.
The flow structure of gas-liquid-solid flow as a key parameter for
airlift pump was unfortunately not clearly understood in the previously
cited works. Researchers investigated the flow regime in airlift pump
operating in gas-liquid two-phase flow, based on the classical flow re-
gime map in typical vertical upward flow where both the gas and liquid
discharge were controlled artificially. According to the typical flow
regime map, some researchers, such as, Hanafizadeh [11–13], Zaraki
[14], Parker [15], Khalil [16], Fan [17], inferred that airlift pump ex-
perienced bubble flow, slug flow, churn flow, annular flow, respec-
tively, when increasing the gas superficial velocity. Afterwards, it was
found that bubbly flow could be ignored in airlift pump due to its
disability for pumping liquid in an extremely low air discharge. In fact,
the flow structure was more unstable in airlift pump than that in typical
vertical gas-liquid flow because the uncontrollable liquid flow rate
entering into airlift pump resulted in a stronger turbulent fluctuation. It
has been found that output liquid flow rate could almost retain a con-
stant maximal flow rate even under an increasing high gas flow rate
[6–10], which was not consistent with the result of annular flow whose
output liquid flow rate should be sharply reduced due to the thinner
film when increasing the gas flow rate according to Stenning and
Martin theory [18]. This was proved by Tramba [19] who found that a
quasi-periodic burst-like behavior, rather than the annular flow,
dominated the performance of airlift pump under low submergence
ratios. We also reported that an intermittent gas-liquid flow structure in
airlift pump operating at high gas flow rate even under high sub-
mergence ratios because the continuous gas core was easy to discrete
into a spray of small bubbles under a strong turbulent environment.
Until now, the exact flow structure of the gas-liquid-solid flow in airlift
pump was still not investigated yet. Many researchers, such as Kassab
[9], Yoshinaga [10], Hu [20] tried to explain the structure of the gas-
liquid-solid flow in airlift pump based on the gas-liquid two phase flow
regime map. But for gas-liquid-solid flow, we believed its flow structure
should be more complex and unstable than that of gas-liquid flow in
airlift pump, because both the liquid and solid superficial velocities
were totally controlled by the gas flow.
In present work, a theoretical analysis of volumetric fractions of gas,
liquid, solid was conducted for better understanding the hydrodynamic
of gas-liquid-solid three phase flow. Moreover, a high-speed camera
was employed for investigating the flow structure of gas-liquid-solid
flow in airlift pump.
2. Experimental setups
The experimental apparatus is shown in Fig. 1. It mainly consisted
of a 40 mm inner diameter lifting tube made of transparent plexiglass to
visually observe the flow structure. The lifting tube was 2500 mm long
provided with two appropriate flanges. Its entrance was connected to
an air injector submerged in the intermediate tank. Its outlet was
connected to a separator provided with an air and a water outlet. The
suction pipe was about 600 mm with an inner diameter of 40 mm, and
its bottom was about 50–150 mm away from the particles deposited in
the Intermediate tank. The supply tank could be moved up and down by
2
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988
a lift mechanism to change the submergence ratio defined as γ = H1/H
(in Fig. 1).
Experiments were performed using uniform spherical particles
(medical stone) with density of 1967 kg/m3 and a diameter of 2 mm. In
this experiment, the feed speed of this particles was about 0.01–0.02
kg/s. The compressed air was continuously supplied by an air com-
pressor and was cleaned by an air filter. To regulate the flow rate and
minimize its fluctuation, a regulator and a shock absorber were
mounted at the inlet of the air injection. Solid particles were con-
tinuously fed from the particle feeder. In air separator, the air was re-
leased to the atmosphere from the pinholes on the cover of the se-
parator. Water and particles continued flowing to the strainer where the
particles were separated from water.
To avoid the decrease of the submergence ratio caused by the loss of
output water, a centrifugal pump with a control system was employed
to keep the height of water in the supply tank. In this experiment, the
submergence ratio varied from 0.4 to 0.7, and the air discharge varied
from 0 to 70 m3/h. A gas turbine flow meter (type: LUGB25) with an
accuracy of ± 1% was mounted near the air injector to get the inlet air
flow rate. 5 pressure transducers ((type: VMK-P300)) were mounted
along the rising pipe to measure the instantaneous pressure signals
using a sampling frequency 500 Hz. To analyze the flow structure in
vertical tube, a high speed camcorder (type: PhantomM310-12G) was
used with a shooting frequency of 1500 frames/s.
To investigate the flow characteristics, some experimental mea-
surements should be made in the fully developed segment. For a slow
multi-phase flow in airlift pumps (JG < 16 m/s, JL < 0.8 m/s,
JS < 0.006 m/s), its developed length was not long. This had been
verified by Moisidis [21] who analyzed the pressure drop along the
riser pipe and found that its pressure drops almost kept constant at a
distance about 16 D (pipe diameter) far away from the exist of the air
injectors. Tighzert [8] also measured the void fraction of airlift pump
working in gas-liquid flow by using quick closing valve method by si-
multaneously closing the two valves, which were about 40 D away from
the air injector. It could be deduced from the result of Tighzert [8] that
the flow in airlift pump had been fully developed. In this experiment,
the top two pressure transducers which were 42.5 D and 45D away
from the air injector were employed for calculating the experimental
pressure drop, and the multiphase flow at a distance region of 50 D-58
D was captured by high speed camera for investigating the hydro-
dynamic of multiphase flow.
The water flow rate was measured by artificially weighing the
output water in 1 min after the airlift pump working in stable condition.
The particle mass flow rate was also measured by the same method. To
accurately obtain the weight of solid particles, the sampled output
particles was weighted after 5 min dehydration in natural state. For
convenience, we did an auxiliary test by soaking the solid particles in
water tank and taking them out for 5 min dehydration in natural state
to obtain the correlation between wet particles and dry particles. Fig. 2
showed the result of wet particle mass versus dry particle mass. It could
be found that the correlation between the mass of dry particles (mdry)
and wet particles (mwet) was,
mdry = 0.889m wet (1)
To maximally reduce the artificial measured error, the water and
particle flow rates were measured 5 times to obtain their mean flow
rates, respectively
5
1 ΔmL 1
JL = ∑
5 i=1
Δt ρL A (2)
5
1 Δmdry 1
JS = ∑
5 i=1
Δt ρS A (3)
Z. Wang, et al. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988

Fig. 1. Airlift pump device.

Fig. 2. Wet particle mass versus dry particle mass.

Fig. 3. Superficial liquid velocity versus superficial gas velocity.

3. Results and discussion
gas flow rate because the thin film flow could hardly pump a high flow
3.1. Water and particle superficial velocities
rate of output water, as said by Wang [2]. Moreover, the output water
flow was intermittent in our experiment which was not consistent with
The results of lifting water and particles by airlift pump, at various
the stable and continuous flow characteristic of annular flow. Wang had
superficial gas velocities and submergence ratios were presented, as
found that the flow structure with a periodic characteristic was mainly
shown in Figs. 3 and 4. In Fig. 3, the lifting water velocity firstly in-
consisted of three flow stage: falling film, slug, ascending film, which
creased to a peak value and then almost keep constant with increasing
was much more reasonable for explaining the water flow characteristic
superficial gas velocity, which was consisted with the result of Kassab
in our experiment.
[9], Yoshinaga [10], Fujimoto [4]. Many researchers had declared that
As shown in Fig. 4, the flow rate of lifting particles was also firstly
this pumping performance was corresponding to the flow regimes
increased to a peak value and then keep constant with the increasing of
transition from slug to churn and finally to annular flow regime, ac-
gas flow rate, which was similar to the trend of water flow. By com-
cording to the classical vertical flow pattern map by Hewitt [22]. In fact,
paring with the liquid and particle velocities in Figs. 3 and 4, it could be
the annular flow should not dominate the pump performance in high

3
Z. Wang, et al. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988

Fig. 4. Superficial solid velocity versus superficial gas velocity.

Fig. 5. Pump efficiency versus superficial gas velocity.
found that the critical gas velocity for pumping particles was much
bigger than that for pumping water at a same submergence ratio. This is could be estimated by Yoshinaga correlation [10]:
because the buoyancy force for particles was bigger than that for water
m
flow. In addition, it also could be found that the peak values of water uS = c + uSW
ρA (6)
and particle velocities appeared in different gas velocities and that the
peak value of particle appeared in a higher gas velocity. Kassab [9] had where c was the distribution coefficient, m the mass flux of gas-liquid-
found that most of particles were uniformly distributed in water slug particle mixture, ρA the apparent density of three phase mixture, uSW
due to the higher friction between particle and water than that between the wall-affected settling velocity of particles. The above parameters,
particle and gas. Thus, particle flow rate should also reach its maximum were given as,
at a maximal water velocity. But the fact was that particle velocity still
c = 1 + 0.2e−5εS,3/(1 − εG) (7)
increased after a peak water velocity. This could be explained that few
particles existed in gas flow still accelerate their velocities after water m = ρG JG + ρL JL + ρS JS (8)
reach its maximal its maximal velocity.
The pumping efficiency, defined as the ratio of the grained power ρ3
ρA = ( )1.5ρLS,3
over the consumed power, can be written as Hu [23] ρLS,3 (9)
ρL QL3 QS2
+ ρL QL g (H − H1) + + QS ρS g (H + H0) − ρL g (H1 + H0) QS ds 2 εS,3 2.4 (ρL / ρA ) S − 1
2A2 2A2 uSW = [1 − ( ) ][1 − ] uST
η= P
Po QG ln( PI ) D 1 − εG S−1 (10)
o

(4) where S was the specific density of particles, uST the free settling ve-
locity of particles in still liquid, ρ3 was the mean density of three phase
where ρ was the mass density, g the gravity acceleration, Q the flow
mixture, ρLS,3 the mean density of the slurry. The two parameters (ρ3,
rate, A the cress section area, H the length of rising pipe, H1 the static
ρLS,3) could be expressed by
depth of water, H0 the length of suction pipe, Po the atmosphere
pressure, PI the air injection pressure. ρ3 = ρG εG + ρL εL,3 + ρS εS,3 (11)
Fig. 5 demonstrated the curves of pumping efficiency versus gas εL,3 εS,3
superficial velocity at various submergence ratios. It was shown that the ρLS,3 = ρL + ρS
1 − εG 1 − εG (12)
pump efficiency decayed linearly in gas superficial velocity at various
submergence ratios, which phenomenon could also be found in the where εG εL,3 were the volumetric fraction of gas and liquid, respec-
researches of Hu [23], Lawniczak [24]. By comparing Figs. 3–5, it could tively. The volumetric fraction of gas was proposed by Yoshinaga [10]
be found that the pump efficiency didn’t increased with the increasing and Kassab [9],
liquid and particle velocities, because the consumed power for in-
εG
creasing gas velocity was much larger than the grained power of water
ρG 1 ρ 1 ρLS,3 / ρG + 0.4(1/ x − 1) 0.5 −1
and particles. In addition, the pump efficiency was also strongly de- = {1 + 0.4 ( − 1) + 0.6 G ( − 1)[ ] }
pendent on the submergence ratio. A higher submergence ratio usually ρLS,3 x ρLS,3 x 1 + 0.4(1/ x − 1)
produced a higher pressure at the bottom of suction pipe and a shorter (13)
distance for water and particles.
ρG JG
x=
m (14)
3.2. Volumetric fractions and pressure drops
The volumetric fraction of liquid could be derived from the volu-
The volumetric fraction of particle (εS,3) in lifting pipe was ex- metric fractions of gas and particle,
pressed by εL,3 = 1 − εG − εS,3 (15)
J
εS,3 = S For the pressure drop in three phase flow, Sadatomi et al. [25]
uS (5)
proposed a modified correlation by regarding a three-phase flow as an
where J was the superficial velocity, us the true particle velocity, which air-slurry flow,

4
Z. Wang, et al. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988

Δp3 21 1 Δp
= (1 + + 2 )(( LS ))
Δz χ χ Δz (16)
where Δp3/Δz was pressure drop in three phase flow, ΔpLS/Δz pressure
drop in two-phase water-solid flow, χ Lockhart and Martinelli para-
meter.
In Eq. (16), the pressure drop in two-phase water-solid flow was
proposed by Sadatomi [25],
ΔpLS λLS ρLS
= (JL + JS )2
Δz 2D (17)

λLS = 0.316Re−LS0.25 (18)

(JL + JS ) D
ReLS =
νL (19)
where νL was liquid kinematic viscosity, D the pipe diameter.
The Lockhart and Martinelli parameter could be expressed by
ΔpLS Δpf,G
χ2 = ( )/( )
Δz Δz (20)
Fig. 6. Comparison of model value of particle volumetric fractions with mea-
where Δp3/Δz was pressure drop in gas flow, and it could be calculated sured value.
as follows:
ΔpG λ
= G ρG JG2
Δz 2D (21)

λ G = 0.316Re−
G
0.25
(22)

JG D
ReG =
νG (23)
where νG was gas kinematic viscosity.
A numerical solution was need to calculate the volumetric fractions
of gas and particle. For the known phase superficial velocities (JG, JL,
JS), a solution of two nonlinear equations (Eqs. (5), (13)) for unknown
parameters (εG, εS,3) was needed, while the other equations (Eqs.
(6)–(12), (14), (15)) were used as explicit auxiliary equations. The two
equations (Eqs. (5), (13)) were rewritten in an implicit form with 0 on
their right-hand side and was solved by a nonlinear equation algorithm
using MATLAB software. This solution could yield the values of para-
meters (εG, εS,3). Plugging those two values into Eq. (15), the volumetric
fraction of liquid could also be calculated. For the pressure drop (Δp3/
Δz), it was very easy to be calculated from explicit Eqs. (16)–(23) for Fig. 7. Comparison of calculated pressure drop with measured one.
known parameters (JG, JL, JS, εG, εS,3, εL,3).
To verify the correctness of this model, the particle volumetric
fraction was firstly measured from the multiphase flow images, cap-
tured by high speed camera. As we know, the particle volumetric
fraction was very difficult to be directly measured by sensors. Liu [26]
proposed a particle volumetric fraction measurement method by using
high speed camera recording the gas-liquid-solid flow field and
counting the numbers of spherical particles. For uniform spherical
particles, its volumetric fraction could be estimated as follows:
4
1
i=N ni 3 π (ds /2)3
εS,3 =
N
∑ V
i=1 (24)
where N was the number of images, n the particle numbers in images, V
the actual volume of multiphase flow in the statistic image.
Fig. 6 showed the model calculated particle volumetric fractions
and the measured values at different superficial gas velocities. Fig. 7
showed the model calculated pressure drop and the measured pressure
drop at different superficial gas velocities. It could be found that the
model calculated values of particle volumetric fraction and pressure
drop were in agreement with the corresponding experimental ones.
Fig. 8. Gas volumetric fraction versus superficial gas velocity.
The calculated results of volumetric fractions of gas, water and
particles in three-phase flow, at various superficial gas velocity were
presented in Figs. 8–10, respectively. It could be found that gas occu-
pied most of the space in rising pipe with a high volumetric fraction, in

5
Z. Wang, et al.
Fig. 9. Liquid volumetric fraction versus superficial gas velocity.
Fig. 10. Particle volumetric fraction versus gas velocity.
a range of 0.78–0.9, and that gas volumetric fraction linearly increased
with the increased gas superficial velocity, which was also consisted
with the findings of Tighzert [8] who measured the void fraction in
airlift pump working in gas-liquid flow. That’s why pump efficiency was
so smaller and continuously decreased with increasing gas velocity. An
interesting phenomenon was that a higher submergence ratio seems to
greatly decrease gas volumetric fraction in rising pipe. That’s to say,
littler gas was needed for pump liquid or particles with a higher sub-
mergence ratio.
The liquid volumetric fraction continuously decreased with the in-
creasing gas velocity, as shown in Fig. 9. However, this decreased liquid
volumetric fraction would not produce a low output water flow rate
with the increased gas flow rate because the true liquid velocity still
increased due to a higher drag force in gas-liquid interface.
For the particle volumetric fraction, it firstly increased to a maximal
value and then slowly decreased with the increasing gas superficial
velocity. This trend was similar to that of particle superficial velocity
versus gas superficial velocity in Fig. 4. It seems that both of particle
volumetric fraction and particle superficial velocity reached their
maximums at same gas superficial velocity. That’s to say, particle vo-
lumetric fraction may dominate the output particle flow rate in some
extent.
Comparing the curves of liquid volumetric fraction and particle
volumetric fraction, it was found that their showed the different curve
trends. The liquid volumetric fraction continuously decreased when
increasing the gas superficial velocity, which had also been verified by
6
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988
Fig. 11. Pressure drop versus gas velocity.
Tighzert [8], because the liquid film became thinner at a larger gas
velocity. But for particles, it was hard to be lifted at a small gas su-
perficial velocity, as many researchers claimed. Its volumetric fraction
firstly increased with the gas superficial velocity because the drag force
acted on particles became larger. When still increasing the gas super-
ficial velocity, particle volumetric fraction slowly decreased. This is
because most of particles were concentrated in liquid phase, as Kassab
said, and it slowly decreased with the decreased liquid volumetric
fraction at a high gas superficial velocity.
Fig. 11 showed the pressure drop of three phase flow at different gas
superficial velocities. It could be found that higher gas superficial ve-
locity produced a larger pressure drop, which was benefit for improving
the liquid and particle velocities. Moisidis [21] also measured the
pressure distribution along the rising pipe, and found that the pressure
drops increased with gas superficial velocity. Moisidis [21], Kassab [9]
and Sadatomi [25] considered this pressure drop was related to the
mixture gravity and wall friction acted on the mixture flow. With the
increase of gas superficial velocity, the wall friction seems to still in-
crease because its mixture velocity increase. Submergence ratio could
obviously increase the pressure drop in three phase flow, as shown in
Fig. 11. This could be explained that the bottom of rising pipe was
under a higher pressure in a larger submergence ratio.
3.3. Flow structure in airlift pump
High speed camera was carried out for observing the flow process of
the gas-liquid-solid flow in airlift pump. For a small superficial gas
velocity, slug flow could be observed in rising pipe, as shown in Fig. 12,
which could hardly pump particles due to a small buoyancy force.
Kassab [9] also found this slug flow regime only in a pumping condition
that a small quantity of water was lifted without any solid particles.
When the gas superficial velocity increased, particles began to be
lifted. Fig. 13 showed photographs of particles flow for the superficial
gas velocity 6.7 m/s and submergence ratio 0.5. It was found that the
Taylor bubble disappeared and that a periodic flow structure, consisted
of three flow state: ascending film, falling film, liquid slug dominated in
rising pipe, which also was similar to the finding in gas-liquid flow [2].
From the images in Fig. 13, it could be found that the particle volu-
metric fraction in liquid slug was much higher than that in liquid film.
This could be explained that the friction drags between liquid and solid
was higher than that between gas and solid. Kassab [9] further de-
monstrated that solid particles in gas core fell faster due to a smaller
drag force and were caught up with the chasing gas/film interface, until
entering into liquid slugs.
Z. Wang, et al.
Fig.12. Flow structure in airlift pump at JG = 1.2 m/s, γ = 0.5.
With the increasing of gas superficial velocity, the falling film
showed a shorter duration time until disappearance. Fig. 14 showed
photographs of a flow cycle for the superficial gas velocity 12 m/s and
submergence ratio 0.5. Compared with Figs. 13 and 14, ascending film
and liquid slug could also be found to flow in lifting pipe, alternately,
But the falling film could not be observed any more. It could be ex-
plained that the higher gas velocity produced a larger interface shear,
which efficiently prevented the falling movement caused by liquid
gravity. Further increasing the gas velocity, this flow cycle with as-
cending film and liquid slug was also dominated, which means the
annular flow with the concurrent flow of continuous gas phase and
continuous liquid phase would not be found in airlift pumps. Many
researchers [27–29] claimed that airlift pumps operating in annular
flow at high flow rate of air intake, according to the classical flow
pattern map made by Hewitt [22]. In fact, the inlet liquid flow rate in
airlift pumps could not be controlled artificially as that in classical
vertical pipe flow. The gas-liquid interface in airlift pump operating at
high gas flow rate was easier to be broken, due to its stronger turbulent
fluctuation of liquid film. That’s why a cycle characteristic was domi-
nated in pumps.
Above all, an intermittent flow characteristic could be observed in
airlift pumps, even under a high gas flow rate. Here, we introduced
hand-drawing sketches to describe the flow structure of airlift pumps,
as shown in Figs. 15 and 16. Fig. 15 showed a flow structure in airlift
Fig. 13. Flow structure in airlift pump at JG = 6.7 m/s, γ = 0.5.
7
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988
pumps operating at a low gas flow rate, as respect to Fig. 13. Small
bubbles in slug body produced a strong drag force, driving liquid
quickly flowing upward, due to the large bubble-liquid contact area. It
seemed that the downstream liquid film also tried to pursue the fast-
moving liquid in slug body, which finally formed a fast-ascending film.
However, the shear force acted on the liquid film was not enough to
balance the film gravity. Thus, the film decelerated its upward velocity
slowly and then accelerated to fall downward. For the contraflow of
ascending gas flow and falling film, huge waves formed in the interface
easily resulted in liquid bridges, blocking the gas core, and finally de-
stroy the continuous gas core into a cluster of small bubbles.
Fig. 16 described the flow structure in airlift pumps operating at a
high gas flow rate, as respect to Fig. 14. Liquid film flowed upward due
to a large shear stress caused by gas flow. But slug body with bubble-
liquid mixture still appeared due to the instability of gas-liquid inter-
face.
As it mentioned above, the mixture flow showed a cycle char-
acteristic in airlift pumps. Thus, we could define the flow frequency for
this intermittent flow as the average number of slug body passing
through a predefined observatory point along vertical pipe per unit
time. This frequency directly determined the pressure gradient and very
helpful for us to understanding pumping performance. According the
definition, the frequency could be calculated from the captured images,
as follows:
Z. Wang, et al. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988

Fig. 14. Flow structure in airlift pump at JG = 12 m/s, γ = 0.5.

Fig. 16. Flow structure in airlift pumps operating at a high gas flow rate.

tslug (or tAF , tFF )

PSB (or PAF , PFF ) =
T (26)

Fig. 15. Flow structure in airlift pumps operating at a low gas flow rate.
fM = N/T (25)
where T was the observation time, N was the number of slug body.
To better understand the flow structure, we quantification-ally de-
fined the proportion of slug body, ascending film, falling film in a flow
cycle, as:
where t was the duration time, T flow cycle, the subscript, SB, AF, FF
means the slug body, ascending film, falling film.
For the images of gas-liquid-solid flow, the manual statistical
method could achieve the flow frequency, the proportions of slug body
and liquid film. But this artificial method was a very hard work, which
also existed a human error. Thus, we introduced an image fractal di-
mension for estimating these flow parameters.
Fractal dimension was a useful tool to describe the degree of
roughness of complex profiles. It had been successfully used in

8
Z. Wang, et al.
Fig. 17. Box fractal dimensions for different flow images.
analyzing the dynamic characteristic of multiphase flow. Liu [30] in-
vestigated the fractal structures of flow images of gas-liquid-solid cir-
culating fluidized beds and found that the fractal dimension changes
with the phase holdup and the agglomeration degree of bubbles. In
airlift pumps, the images of slug body, ascending film, falling film in a
flow cycle showed some obvious differences in image roughness. Thus,
fractal dimension could be used to distinguish these three different flow
states.
In this investigation, a box dimension was used for analyzing the
flow characteristics. Its detail calculation method could be seen in the
researches of Nayak [31] and Nasim [32]. Fig. 17 showed the box di-
mensions of the flow images in Fig. 13 at JG = 6.7 m/s, γ = 0.5. it could
be found that the image of slug body showed a maximal fractal di-
mension and the image of falling film showed a minimal fractal di-
mension because the small bubbles in slug body was the densest, re-
sulting in a coarse image as shown in Fig. 13(e).
For the flow images, all their fractal dimensions could be calculated.
Fig. 18 showed the fractal dimension versus time at JG = 6.7 m/s,
12 m/s, γ = 0.5. It could be found that the fractal dimension showed a
periodic fluctuation characteristic, which means the slug body and film
alternately flowing. By comparing the actual flow images with the
series of fractal dimension, it could be verified that the fractal dimen-
sion could successfully describing the flow dynamic of gas-liquid-solid
flow in airlift pumps.
By comparing the actual flow images with the series of fractal
Fig. 18. Fractal dimension versus time at different gas superficial velocity.
9
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988
Fig. 19. Flow frequency versus gas superficial velocity.
dimension, it could be concluded that the fractal dimension of slug
body image was in a range of 2.02–2.06, the dimension of ascending
film was in a range of 2–2.02, and the dimension of falling film was in a
range of 1.92–2. From the time series of fractal dimension, the numbers
of slug body (N in Eq. (25)), the observation time (T in Eq. (26)), and
the corresponding duration time of slug body, ascending film, falling
film (t in Eq. (26)), could also be estimated. Thus, the flow frequency
and the proportion of slug body, ascending film, falling film could also
be easily measured.
Fig. 19 showed a plot of flow frequency as a function of gas su-
perficial velocity at submergence ratio, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6. It showed that the
flow frequency was in a range of 1.5–2.6 Hz, and it decreased with the
increasing gas superficial velocity. For increasing gas superficial velo-
city, a decrease in liquid holdup would be happened, as shown in Fig. 9.
This means the film thickness would be thinner, which delayed the
formation of slug body and finally decrease the flow frequency, because
a thin film was not good for the formation of a complete liquid bridge
capable of blocking gas flow. Submergence ratio also had an obvious
effect on the flow frequency that large submergence ratio enhanced the
flow frequency at the same gas superficial velocity. As we already
known from Figs. 3, 9 that submergence ratio could improve the liquid
volumetric fraction and superficial liquid velocity. Thus, we could de-
duce that the larger liquid superficial velocity was benefit for enhancing
flow frequency.
Ahmed [6,7] used to investigate the pulsating air injection method
in an airlift pump with a 31.75 mm inner diameter for better pump
performance by a solenoid value with a function of controlling the
pulsating air stream at various frequencies. His results showed that the
pulsating injection operating at a frequency range of 1–2.5 Hz has a
much high pump efficiency than that of steadily air injection method.
Ahmed explained that pulsating injection could reduce the axial air
penetration and minimize water reverse flow in the riser. It also con-
firmed that pulsating injection using some frequency greatly could
prevent the formation of film flow. This was reasonable, because film
flow could easily transform into slug body flow, according to the in-
stability of gas-liquid interface theory [33].
Figs. 20–22 illustrated the curves of proportion of slug body, falling
film, ascending film versus gas superficial velocity at submergence
ratio, 0.4 ,0.5, 0.6. It could be found from Fig. 20 that the proportion of
falling film decreased slowly until to 0 with the increasing gas velocity,
due to the larger shear stress of gas flow. Moreover, an increase in
submergence ratio resulted in a decrease in proportion of falling film,
because, the mixture pressure became more higher and efficiently and
this pressure prevented the falling movement. For ascending film, its
proportion continuously increased with the increasing gas superficial
Z. Wang, et al.
Fig. 20. Proportion of falling film versus gas superficial velocity.
Fig. 21. Proportion of slug body versus gas superficial velocity.
Fig. 22. Proportion of ascending film versus gas superficial velocity.
velocity. This was very reasonable that higher gas velocity produced a
higher shear stress.
For the proportion of slug body, it firstly increased with the gas
superficial velocity until to a maximal value, beyond which, a further
increase in gas velocity leaded to a slowly decrease in the proportion of
10
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 112 (2020) 109988
Fig. 23. Particle superficial velocity versus proportion of slug body.
slug body. According to Kelvin-Helmholtz theory [33], the proportion
of slug body should become larger when increasing the gas superficial
velocity, because the gas-liquid interface was easier to be broken under
a large perturbation. It was true that the slug body length became
longer when continuously increasing gas superficial velocity in a gas
velocity range of JG < 11 m/s, as shown in Fig. 21. However, this
phenomenon could not sustain at a high gas velocity, because the small
bubbles in slug body sharply increased their quantity and coalesced into
gas core. That’s to say, gas core formation and slug body formation
simultaneity occurred at high gas superficial velocity. Moreover, the
speed of gas core formation was larger than that of slug body formation,
which also resulted in a decline of proportion of slug body at high gas
superficial velocity, as shown in Fig. 21.
The effect of submergence ratio on the proportion of slug body was
obvious that a large submergence ratio improved the proportion of slug
body, which could be explained that a higher-pressure gradient, caused
by submergence ratio was more benefited for the formation of slug
body.
As we mentioned in Figs. 13 and 14, the particle number in slug
body was much larger than that in liquid film. Thus, the proportion of
slug body was very important to determine the pump performance.
Figs. 23 and 24 showed the curves of particle and liquid superficial
velocities versus the proportion of slug body. It was confirmed that a
large portion of slug body could greatly improve the particle and liquid
superficial velocities.
Fig. 24. Liquid superficial velocity versus proportion of slug body.
Z. Wang, et al.
4. Conclusions
The superficial velocities of output liquid and particle in airlift
pumps were experimentally investigated. And a theoretical analysis of
volumetric fractions of gas, liquid, solid was conducted for better un-
derstanding the hydrodynamic of gas-liquid-solid three phase flow.
Moreover, a high speed camera was employed for visually studying the
flow structure. The main results obtained were listed below:
(1) Liquid volumetric fraction continuously decreased with the in-
creasing gas velocity, while, particle volumetric fraction firstly in-
creased to a maximal value and then slowly decreased with the
increasing gas superficial velocity.
(2) An intermittent flow characteristic appeared in airlift pumps, be-
cause the gas-liquid interface in airlift pump was easy to be broken
under a strong turbulent environment. For a low superficial gas
velocity, a periodic flow structure consisted of three flow state:
ascending film, falling film, liquid slug dominated in rising pipe.
For a large superficial gas velocity, the film disappeared and a
periodic structure consisted of ascending film and liquid slug
dominated in airlift pumps.
(3) The flow frequency in airlift pump was in a range of 1.5–2.6 Hz, and
it decreased with the increasing gas superficial velocity, but in-
creased with the submergence ratio.
(4) The portion of slug body determined the performance of airlift
pump, because, particle holdup in slug body usually were much
larger than those in liquid films. Thus, in practical engineering,
some method for increasing the portion of slug body could be used
for better pump performance.
Declaration of Competing Interest
We declare that we have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
This research is financially by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51705145, 51804115) and the Natural
Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China (Grant No. 2018JJ2092).
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