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Air Injection Methods: The Key to a Better Performance of Airlift Pumps

Article  in  Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science (EXP THERM FLUID SCI) · September 2015
DOI: 10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2015.09.022

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 Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/etfs

Air injection methods: The key to a better performance of airlift pumps

W.H. Ahmed a,⇑, A.M. Aman b, H.M. Badr b, A.M. Al-Qutub b
a
School of Engineering, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd., Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada
b
Mechanical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a comprehensive experimental investigation on the effect of air injection methods on
Received 2 January 2015 the performance of airlift pumps. The effect of air–water two-phase flow patterns and the phase interac-
Received in revised form 27 August 2015 tion is presented. The present airlift pump utilizes various air injectors specially designed to enable air
Accepted 19 September 2015
injection radially, axially, dual (radial and axial), or with a swirl effect at the air inlet ports. In addition,
Available online 26 September 2015
two air injection modes including steadily and pulsating, at different injection frequencies, are investi-
gated at different two-phase flow patterns. The results have shown that the performance of airlift pumps
Keywords:
does not only depend on the design of air injector, but also on the dynamics of air injection method. The
Airlift pumps
Two-phase flow
pulsating mode of air injection is found to control the intermittent flow pattern in the pump riser and
Multi-injection consequently able to keep the pump operating within the best efficiency range. The maximum efficiency
Dual-injection of the pulsating axial injection operating at a frequency of 1 Hz has improved by 60% over that of typical
Swirl steady axial injection and by 24% over that of steady dual injection. Furthermore, the performance of air-
Pulsating lift pumps with dual injector is improved by synchronizing the injected air at both axial and radial injec-
tion ports. The improvement in this arrangement is attributed to the better utilization of available
compressed air, reduction of axial air penetration and minimization of water reverse flow in the riser
pipe.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction applications including nuclear, oil production, and petrochemical

The concept of airlift pumps was first introduced in 1797 by an
engineer (Carl Loescher) in the German coal mining industry.
According to Castro et al. [2], the first practical implementation
of airlift pump was in 1846 in the United States where it was uti-
lized in Pennsylvania’s oil fields. The airlift pump is classified as a
special effect pump that utilizes compressed gas (usually air) to lift
liquids or slurries. In these pumps, air is injected at the lower end
of a pipe, called the riser pipe, which is partially submerged in the
liquid to be lifted. The test section below the air injection point in
the pump is called the suction pipe and the end section of the
pump is called the delivery pipe whereas the riser pipe links the
suction pipe to the delivery pipe. The driving mechanism of the air-
lift pump is mainly the buoyancy force. As air injected at the bot-
tom of the riser pipe, the hydrostatic weight of the gas–liquid
mixture inside the riser pipe becomes less than the surrounding
liquid leading the total mixture to rise upwards through the
discharge pipe. The pump has been also used for seawater
samples collection [27], underwater mining [31], and in many
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ahmedw@uoguelph.ca (W.H. Ahmed).
processes for pumping corrosive, toxic or explosive materials
[16]. In addition, it has various implementations in aerating
aquafarming pools [22,30]. Also, Reinemann et al. [23] reported
that airlift pumps are heavily used in recirculating aquaculture
systems instead of centrifugal pumps and has greatly reduced
the energy usage nearly by 60%.
The main advantages of the airlift pump over conventional
mechanical pumps are its simplicity and reliability. Because of its
simple design and the absence of moving parts, this pump is very
reliable and can be used for pumping corrosive liquids provided
that the pump operating conditions are properly selected [15]. This
results in lowering the initial costs and maintenance cycles in addi-
tion to occupying smaller space. On the other hand, when com-
pared with conventional pumps, the main drawback of the airlift
pump is its low efficiency at low submergence ratio. This is mainly
due to the large amount of air used compared to the amount of liq-
uid or slurries delivered.
Several studies were carried out to investigate the performance
of the airlift pump [17,23,14,13,15,19]. It was found that the
performance is mainly affected by two groups of parameters;
geometrical and operating parameters. Mahrous [19] conducted a
study to numerically investigate the effect of introducing a gradual

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2015.09.022
0894-1777/Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365
Nomenclature
A area (m2)
D pipe diameter (m)
f friction factor
g gravitational acceleration (9.81 m/s2)
Hs static depth of water
J volumetric flux (m/s)
L pipe length (m)
m_ mass flow rate (kg/s)
u velocity (m/s)
P pressure (N/m2)
Patm atmosphere pressure (N/m2)
Q_ volume flow rate (m3/s)
Sr submergence ratio
T room temperature (K)
t time (s)
Z distance along the pipe (m)
enlargement of the riser pipe downstream of the air injection
section. He claimed that this method will reduce the transition to
annular flow, which results in low pumping performance as
concluded by Kassab et al. [14,15]. The effect of the geometrical
parameter of the gradually enlarged riser was tested at different
configurations. Also, he found that positioning of a riser pipe with
a gradual increase in its diameter closer to the injection zone
would considerably improve the liquid flow rate of the airlift
pump, which agrees with Kassab et al. [13] and Kouremenos and
Staicos [17]. Additionally, Mahrous [19] indicated that increasing
the degree of expansion of the enlarged section tends to improve
the pump performance. On the other hand, the length of the grad-
ually enlarged section did not affect the performance of the pump.
An experimental investigation was carried out by Khalil et al.
[16] to study effect of the number of orifices in a desk-type injector
on the performance of an airlift pump at different submergence
ratios. The number of orifices was varied from 1 up to 48 while
keeping the total opening area constant at nearly 10 mm2. Their
study showed a significant variation of the pump performance at
different submergence ratios. In addition, a disk with three holes
showed highest efficiency at almost all submergence ratios.
However, it was found that for every submergence ratio there is
an optimum number of holes that delivers the maximum output
flow rate [16]. Another study reported by Hu et al. [12] showed
that the pumping capacity for liquids and solids is considerably
reduced when utilizing more than three exit ports. They found that
the lifting capability of the pump lifting increases at higher air
injection rate while efficiency remains very low. On the other hand,
Hitoshi et al. [11] experimentally found that the location of gas-
injection point has a significant effect on the pump performance.
Also, if the gas-injection point is located above 45 pipe diameters
from the riser pipe inlet, the total discharged water decreases
significantly.
Another design of airlift pump is experimentally investigated by
Riglin [24]. In this study, the effect of adding swirl component in
the radial air injector was evaluated. This study showed that air
injected axially has the same or better water discharge than the
air with swirl. He also tested the effect of adding auxiliary
tangential water stream before the air injection nozzle. No
improvement in the pump performance resulted from the auxiliary
water injection.
Fan et al. [4] carried out experimental and theoretical studies on
the use of airlift pumps in artificial upwelling of ocean water.
They found that the performance of an airlift pump depends
greatly on geometrical parameters, operating parameters, air
355
q density (kg/m3)
a void fraction
l viscosity (kg/m s)
s shear stress (N/m2)
g efficiency (%)
Subscript
a axial injector
G gas
Ga gas in the axial direction
Gr gas in radial direction
L liquid
Lo flowing as liquid only
r radial
0 inlet section
injection method, and vertical distribution of water density. Exper-
iments were performed at one submerged ratio, with four different
air injection nozzle designs with exactly the same total injection
area and various air flow rates. The four nozzles configurations
are: (a) cross shape with 384 holes, (b) cross shape with 24 holes,
(c) circular shape with 24 holes, and (d) circular shape with 384
holes. The results indicated that the highest efficiency was
obtained using nozzle type (a). However, nozzles with 24 holes
(types b and c) created higher efficiency, at a wide range of the
air flow rate but for some air flow rates. They concluded that the
nozzle with the highest efficiency is not necessarily the best nozzle
for all conditions and there is no best nozzle for all air flow rates.
The flow patterns of air–water mixture in airlift pumps were
studied and discussed by Kassab et al. [15], Hanafizadeh et al.
[6,7] and Hanafizadeh and Ghorbani [10]. They stated that the
two-phase flow pattern in the riser pipe is one of the main
parameters that affects airlift pump performance. In their study,
they utilized an imaging analysis technique and obtained four
main regimes; bubbly, slug, churn, and annular flow. The results
indicated that bubbly flow could not lift water column at low
submergence ratio due to its low buoyancy force. The study
concluded that the flow pattern for the highest airlift pump perfor-
mance was mainly slug flow. In another study, Hanafizadeh et al.
[8] made a numerical investigation on the effect of tapering angle
(ranging from 0 to 3 degrees) of the riser on the performance of an
airlift pump for different submergence ratios and different diame-
ters. It was found that 3 degrees of tapering produced the highest
efficiency. It was also observed that the maximum water lift
occurred in the bubbly–slug flow pattern. This has been also found
by DeCachard and Delhaye [3] who showed experimentally that
the dominant flow pattern in the best efficiency range of a small
diameter airlift pumps is slug flow. Recently, Tighzert et al. [26]
and Hanafizadeh et al. [9] have conducted experimental investiga-
tion on the performance of air-lift pump and observed that the
maximum efficiency also occurs when the flow pattern is slug or
in transition to churn flow.
Several analytical and numerical models were developed to
predict the performance of airlift pump performance
[21,25,23,15,6,7,20,28]. In these studies, analytical models are
developed by employing both the momentum equation and the
continuity equation considering either homogenous, one-
dimensional two-fluid model or considering the flow pattern inter-
facial parameters to characterize the pump performance. Several
design parameters are integrated in the developed airlift pump
models including the riser pipe diameter, submergence ratio and
356 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365
the location of air injection, in addition to, the operating parame-
ters including the injection pressure and the fluid properties as
input data to the model equations. On the other hand, Meng
et al. [20] and Wahba et al. [28] utilized the Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) tools to develop a two-phase flow model for an
air-lift pump. Their model is governed by the principle of momen-
tum transfer between the phases. Meng et al. [20] assumed that
the flow is completely dispersed bubble flow with perfectly spher-
ical shape, while Wahba et al. [28] uses large eddy simulation (LES)
to predict the pump performance. The calculated results were ver-
ified using different measurements available in the literature.
Although the CFD analysis performed by Meng et al. [20] can be
used to optimize an airlift pump with predetermined conditions in
the case of bubbly flow regime, additional investigations are
needed for the cases beyond their assumptions. Moreover, some
analytical models that take into account both two phase flow
friction coefficient and slip tend have been developed to determine
the pump performance, are found to be comparable with LES
results as concluded by Wahba et al. [28]. In both studies, informa-
tion on the effect of air injector design on the pump performance
cannot be obtained. However, the work done by Wahba et al.
[28] shows a great potential for LES to be used in predicting the
airlift pump performance.
Based on the above review, it is clear that very few studies were
conducted on the effect of air injection methods on the perfor-
mance of the airlift pump. In addition, none of the available studies
considered the effect of both air injector design and the air
injection mode on the performance of airlift pumps. Nowadays,
with the growing demand for designing more sustainable systems,
airlift pumps are adapted for many applications when gas or air
pressure source already available as an alternative energy utiliza-
tion option. Therefore, additional research effort is necessary to
improve the efficiency of airlift pumps and to reduce the extensive
testing required for design optimization before manufacturing and
commercialization.
2. Experimental setup and pump design
The schematic diagram of the setup is illustrated in Fig. 1. The
pump consists of a riser pipe which is a 2 m long transparent
acrylic pipe that has a 31.75 mm inner diameter. The delivery tank
is connected to the riser pipe from the top end to separate the air
from water and release it to the atmosphere whereas the water
continues to flow to the collecting tank for measuring. The shape
of the delivery tank is designed in such a way to direct the flow
smoothly to the collecting tank and prevents reverse flow back
to the riser pipe. The riser pipe is fed with water from the water
supply tank which is kept at a fixed level by overflowing the excess
water via the overflow pipe. Additionally, the water supply tank
height is adjustable to control the submergence ratio of the test
(Hs/L). It is important to note that the height is set throughout
the whole study to produce a submerge ratio of 0.5. All parts in
the setup are transparent to allow the observation of various
two-phase flow patterns.
The compressed air utilized in the experiments is supplied by a
central compressed air facility and the pressure is kept constant by
a pressure regulator. A 19-mm diameter pipeline delivers the com-
pressed air to the air injector at constant pressure passing through
an on/off valve, a pressure-reducing valve, a needle valve to control
the supplied air pressure, a pressure gage, a flow meter, and an
electrically operated solenoid valve. The purpose of the solenoid
valve is to control the pulsating air stream at various frequencies.
The solenoid valve opening and closure is controlled by a cyclic
timer. To calculate the air inflow density, the instantaneous air
pressure and temperature are recorded for each experiment and
the instantaneous mass flow rate is then calculated. The flow
was visualized downstream of the injectors, approximately 2 pipe
diameter from the air injector, using a high-speed video camera
that can operate at speeds up to 1000 frames/s. The flow images
were captured and processed using MIDAS 4.0 Software using PC.
The uncertainty analysis was performed according to the multi-
variant Taylor Series method and the values are summarized in
Table 1.
A summative comparison of the air injectors utilized in this
study is illustrated in Fig. 2. The injectors are attached at the bot-
tom end of the riser pipe and are supplied with compressed air
from the central air compressor station located at the fluid
mechanics laboratory at KFUPM. The dual injector designed by
Ahmed and Badr [1] has two compartments; namely radial and
axial. This enables to perform radial, axial, and dual injection tests.
The radial compartment consists of 180 small holes of 1.7 mm
distributed uniformly over the pipe circumference. The axial com-
partment has a stainless steel liner with annular clearance of
1.5 mm that forces the air to flow axial to the pipe through the
annulus. Furthermore, two swirl injectors (60 and 45 degrees)
were manufactured at KFUPM workshop and used in this study.
The swirl injector has four 6.35 mm diameter flow passages drilled
through the main body at angles h = 60° or h = 45° and has an offset
value from the center of 12.7 mm to produce the swirl effect in
addition to the axial air injection as shown in details in Fig. 3.
The modified Stenning and Martin [25] and Reinemann et al.
[23] models by Kassab et al. [15] are adapted in the present work
to determine the required parameters for designing the pump
and to identify the operating range at which different pump
injectors will be tested. The momentum equation is applied for
each section of the airlift riser pipe and written as:

 n o n o
A J L qL uL;1 þ Aannular J G;axial qG;1 uG;axial  A J G;2 qG;2 uG;2 þ J L qL uL;2
Z 1 Z 2 Z 1
 pD sL dz  pD sLG dz  A fqL ð1  aÞggdz
0 1 0
Z 2
A fqG a þ qL ð1  aÞggdz þ AfqL gðLÞg ¼ 0 ð1Þ
1
where J is the volumetric flux, u is the velocity, a the volumetric
fraction, q the density, s the shear stress, g the gravitational accel-
eration. The subscripts G and L represent air and water respectively.
The subscripts 0, 1 and 2 represent the cross sections of the water
inlet, air injector and the outlet, respectively. In the present analy-
sis, the frictional pressure loss in the air–water two-phase flow and
can be written as:
Z  
1
DPf ;L
pD sL dz ¼ A L0 þ DPE ð2Þ
0 Dz
DP
where Dfz;L is the single-phase frictional pressure gradient and DPE is
the entrance pressure drop of the suction pipe and can be neglected
due to its small value compared to the total pressure drop.
The total pressure drop along the riser pipe is written as:
Z  
2
DPf ;LG
pD sLG dz ¼ A  ðLÞ ð3Þ
1 DZ
DP
where Dfz;LG is the two-phase frictional pressure gradient and can be
obtained using the separated two-phase flow developed by Lock-
hart and Martinelli [18] for adiabatic two-phase with no phase
change and given by:
DPf ;LG 4  f L ðJL  qL Þ2 2
¼   /Lo ð4Þ
Dz D 2  qL
fL is the friction coefficient for liquid and /2Lo is the two-phase fric-
tion multiplier as if the liquid flowing only in the pipe and defined
 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365 357

(a) Overall experimental setup

• •
m water + m air ,total

HL 1

D Water

L Capacitance meter Pilot control

Hs

Timer switch
Control valve

Air injector

2 Air Supply
pp y

•
m water Control valve Timer switch

(b) Pulsating flow circuit

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experiment setup.
358 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365

!
Table 1 1 e=D 2:51
Uncertainty of the measured variables. pffiffiffi ¼ 2:0 log þ pffiffiffi ð7Þ
f 3:7 Re f
Parameter Absolute uncertainty Percentage uncertainty (%)
Air mass flow rate ±2.5% Also, the void fraction for one dimensional separated two-phase
Water mass flow rate ±5% model, assuming a constant relative velocity between the two
Pressure ±4% phases and same friction factor for both phases, is determined
Temperature ±0.5 °C using [29] model and Lockhart and Martinelli parameter (X) as
Efficiency ±5%
follow:
0:375
a ¼ ð1 þ X 0:8 Þ ð8Þ
as a friction of Lockhart–Martinelli’s parameter (X) for turbulent– In the present study, the pump efficiency is calculated in the
turbulent two-phase flow: present study using a modified definition of Nicklin [21]

20 1 qgQ L ðL  Hs Þ
/2Lo ¼ 1 þ þ 2 ð5Þ g ¼ Rt
ð9Þ
X X t¼0
P atm Q Gr ln Ppatm
r
þ Patm Q Ga ln Ppatm
a
þ Patm Q Gs ln Ppatm
s
:dt
And
where QL is the water discharge, QG is the volumetric flow rate of
 0:9  0:5  0:1 air, Pin is the injection pressure of air, Patm is the atmospheric
1x qG lL
X¼   ð6Þ pressure, Pr, Pa and Ps are the injection pressures at the radial, axial
x qL lG
or swirl air injectors. For pulsating air injection, the dynamic
The friction factor is obtained using Colebrook equation as measurements of the above parameters were collected and
listed by Haaland [5], where the friction factor, f, may be obtained integrated over the entire operating period (t) for the total
by solving the following equation: compressed air power.

(a) Schematic of air injectors design

Swirl
Axial Air
Injector
Injector Injector

Radial
Injector Solenoid
valve

(b) Actual pictures of fabricated injectors

Fig. 2. Air injectors used in the present study.
 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365 359

Installation Length 7

2
Injector Length

5
d
1

Section A-A Flow Inlet

Flow Inlet

Isometric Section

Injection length

Suction Part

3
4
Section B-B

Fig. 3. Details of swirl air injectors showing both axial and swirl tangential air direction.

Bubbly and plug flow Slug and Churn flow Annular wavy flow

Fig. 4. Typical air–water flow patterns observed in the riser pipe for different air injectors.
360 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365

0.30 10 0.30

9
0.25 0.25
8
Water mass flow rate, kg/s

Water mass flow rate, kg/s

7
0.20 0.20

Efficiency, %
6
Water flow rate

0.15 5 0.15 Radial

Efficiency
4 Axial
0.10 0.10
3 Dual (50% Axial 50% Radial)

2 Swirl (60 degree)

0.05 0.05
1 Swirl (45 degree)

0.00 0 0.00
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007
Air mass flow rate, kg/s
Air mass flow rate, kg/s
Fig. 5. Performance of the airlift pump under steady radial injection.
Fig. 7. Water mass flow rate against air mass flow rate for all injection types under
steady flow.

3. Results and discussions

swirl injection using the 45-degree injector at 1 Hz, (10) synchro-
A total number of 229 experiments were performed in order to nize pulsating dual injection of axial and radial with equal flow
evaluate the performance of airlift pumps. The typical flow pat- rates, and (11) alternating dual injection of axial and radial injec-
terns observed in the present study are shown in Fig. 4. As shown tors with equal flow rates.
in the figure, the transition from bubbly flow to slug flow occurs Fig. 5 illustrates the typical characteristic curve of airlift pump
due to the coalescence of the gas bubbles where the liquid turbu- using radial air injector. The figure indicates a continuous increase
lent fluctuations are not high enough to break large gas bubbles. As of the water flow rate with the increase of the rate air injection
the gas flow rate is increased, the rate of agglomeration to large until reaching approximately a constant value at approximately
bubbles increases sharply to a point where the slug flow becomes the best efficiency. At this point, slug and/or slug–churn flow pat-
churn. As the air flow rate increases, the gas phase penetrate the tern is observed in the riser pipe as shown in the flow pattern
liquid column and the annular wavy flow pattern occurs. It should sequence presented in Fig. 6. The time sequence is selected in order
be noted here that many flow patterns have been observed for dif- to show the change of the flow distribution with time. It should be
ferent air injection methods, however, they are all can be catego- noted that the time interval is selected based on the observed flow
rized under the main flow patterns shown in Fig. 4. Experiments pattern and to present clear pictures for the flow patterns at these
are performed to evaluate 11 different air injection modes keeping conditions. It was noticed that for low values of air mass flow rate
a submergence ratio of 0.5 unchanged. These modes of air injection from 0 to 0.0005 kg/s, no water is lifted because the buoyant force
including: (1) steady axial injection, (2) steady radial injection, (3) exerted by the air bubbles is not enough to raise the water column
steady dual injection of axial and radial with equal flow rates, (4) and the air bubble penetrates the liquid column upward toward
pulsating axial injection at 1 Hz, (5) pulsating radial injection at the discharge end. The time steps shown in Fig. 6 is selected to cap-
1 Hz, (6) steady swirl injection using the 60-degree injector, (7) ture slug formation downstream of the air injector. It should be
steady swirl injection using the 45-degree injector, (8) pulsating noted that the slug formation downstream of the air injector can
swirl injection using the 60-degree injector at 1 Hz, (9) pulsating be considered as a quasi-steady phenomenon that is repeated in
Reverse flow
Reverse flow

t = 0 sec t = 0.01 sec t = 0.02 sec t = 0.03 sec t = 0.04 sec t = 0.07 sec t = 0.1 sec

Fig. 6. Sequence of flow pattern downstream of radial air injector under steady flow condition.
 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365 361

14 a cyclic manner over a period of time as shown in the figure. These

Radial observations agree with the previous published work of Stenning
12 and Martin [25], Reinemann et al. [23], Kassab et al. [15], Hanafiza-
Axial
deh et al. [6,7] and Ahmed and Badr [1]. Further increase in the air
10 Dual (50% Axial 50% Radial) injection rate beyond the best efficiency range does not result in
any appreciable increase in the water flow rate. This observation
Efficiency, %

Swirl (60 degree)

8 explains the highest efficiency of approximately 9% occurring at
Swirl (45 degree) an air flow rate of 103 kg/s beyond which a drastic efficiency drop
6 occurs at higher air injection rates. Fig. 5 also indicates that the
water flow rate starts only when the air injection rate exceeds a
4 certain minimum value (approximately 5  104 kg/s) below
which there is no output water flow. This is corresponding to the
2 minimum bouncy force exerted by the air bubbles to lift the water
column in the riser pipe.
0 The performance of the airlift pump operating under steady air
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007
injection using different injection regimes is shown in Figs. 7 and 8.
Air mass flow rate, kg/s
Fig. 7 shows the variation of the water flow rate with the air mass
Fig. 8. Efficiency against air mass flow rate for all injection types under steady flow. flow rate for the radial, axial, dual and swirl injection methods. It is
clear from the figure that the pump with radial injector lifts more

t = 0 sec t = 0.01 sec t = 0.02 sec t = 0.03 sec t = 0.035 sec t = 0.04 sec t = 0.045 sec

Fig. 9. Sequence of flow pattern downstream of axial air injector under steady flow condition.

t = 0 sec t = 0.001 sec t = 0.002 sec t = 0.003 sec t = 0.004 sec t = 0.005 sec t = 0.006 sec

Fig. 10. Sequence of flow pattern downstream of swirl air injector under steady flow condition showing the water reverse flow.
362 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365

(a) Radial (b) Axial (c) Dual (d) Swirl

Fig. 11. Effect of the injection method on the flow pattern downstream of air injector under steady flow condition.

0.25 0.3

0.25
Water mass flow rate, kg/s

0.20
Water mass flow rate, kg/s

0.2

0.15
Frequency in Hz 0.15

f=1
0.10 0.1
f=0.67 Radial

Axial
f=0.5 0.05
0.05 Dual (50% Radial 50% Axial)
f=5
0
f=2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
0.00 Frequency, Hz
0 0.0005 0.001 0.0015
Air mass flow rate, kg/s Fig. 13. Effect of the frequency on the dual injector airlift pump at a fixed air
(a) Effect of air pulsation on the output water flow rates injecting air of 0.002 kg/s.

25
water for the same air mass flow rate over the entire flow rate
range. The figure shows that the dual injection produces water
20 flow rate approximately similar to the pump with radial injector.
Frequency in Hz Also, it was found that the axial and swirl air injection produce less
f=1 water flow rates at any air mass flow rate. For axial injection, this is
Efficiency, %

15
attributed to the high air momentum that leads to more air pene-
f=0.67
tration in the liquid column and consequently less buoyancy effect
10 f=0.5 (Fig. 9). On the other hand, the amount of water reverse in the riser
pipe found to increase in the case of swirl injection as shown in
f=5 Fig. 10. One should emphasize here that the power input to the
5 pump depends not only on the air mass flow rate but also on the
f=2 air inlet pressure. Accordingly, higher water flow rate does not nec-
essarily mean higher efficiency. In fact, the total mass of air is cal-
0
0 0.0005 0.001 0.0015 culated using the air density determined based on the actual
Air mass flow rate, kg/s injection pressure measurements. Fig. 8 shows the pump efficiency
for the same cases presented in Fig. 7. The highest efficiency
(b) Effect of air pulsation on the pump efficiency
(12.7%) was obtained in the case of dual injection (50% radial and
Fig. 12. Performance of the airlift pump under pulsating injection. 50% axial) occurring at an air mass flow rate of approximately
 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365 363

t = 0 sec t = 0.005 sec t = 0.01 sec t = 0.015 sec t = 0.02 sec t = 0.025 sec t = 0.03 sec

Fig. 14. Sequence of flow pattern downstream air injector under pulsating flow condition.

0.30 from the dual injector, which is responsible for higher bouncy
force, in comparison with the flow pattern produced in other injec-
0.25 tion method as shown in Fig. 11. On the other hand, the highest
efficiency in the cases of radial and axial injection methods have
not exceeded 9.4% and 9.2% respectively. This indicates an increase
Water mass flow rate, kg/s

0.20
of the pump efficiency using dual injection of approximately 35%
over that of radial injection.
0.15 Pulsating Radial
Additional improvement of the airlift pump performance is
Pulsating Axial achieved by changing the air injection method from steady to pul-
0.10
sating as shown in Fig. 12. In this figure, the variation of the water
Pulsating Swirl (60 degree) flow rate with the air mass flow rate for the four air injection
0.05 regimes is presented. Therefore, in order to determine the opti-
Pulsating Swirl (45 degree)
mum pulsating frequency at this submergence ratio, the efficien-
0.00 cies of the airlift pump using different air injectors and at the
0 0.0005 0.001 0.0015 0.002 0.0025 0.003 0.0035 0.004
same air mass flow rate are compared at different injection fre-
Air mass flow rate, kg/s
quencies as shown in Fig. 13. The figure shows that 1 Hz is a suit-
(a) Effect of air pulsation on the output water flow rates able injection frequency at which the pump performance is
18
maximum. The pulsating mode of air injection is found to control
the intermittent flow pattern in the pump riser and consequently
16 Pulsating Radial
able to keep the pump operating within the best efficiency range
14 Pulsating Axial as shown in Fig. 14.
One of the main features of pulsating air injection mode is
12 Pulsating Swirl (60 degree)
increasing the maximum water flow rate that can be achieved at
Efficiency, %

10
Pulsating Swirl (45 degree)
a fixed submergence ratio. For example, in Fig. 15, the liquid flow
rate in the steady injection methods does not exceed a water mass
8
flow rate of 0.26 kg/s. By utilizing the pulsating mode, the pump
6 was capable of lifting more water than steady injection at the same
4 air mass flow rates. Moreover, the figure shows that pulsating
radial injection at 1 Hz has improved the maximum efficiency
2
reaching a value of 14.2% which is greater than the maximum
0 efficiency of steady radial injection by 54.5%. It is important to
0 0.0005 0.001 0.0015 0.002 0.0025 0.003 0.0035 0.004
mention that the air flow rate that provides the maximum
Air mass flow rate, kg/s
efficiency in the case of radial injection has been shifted from
(b) Effect of air pulsation on the pump efficiency 1.2  103 kg/s down to 6.8  104 kg/s. Similarly, the efficiency
Fig. 15. Water flow rate against air flow rate for all injection types under pulsation
of axial injection has improved in pulsating flow reaching a
at 1 Hz. maximum value of 15.7% at an air flow rate of 5.4  104 kg/s
representing an increase of 66.7% in comparison with the
maximum efficiency of the steady axial injection regime.
1.3  103 kg/s. Moreover, the efficiency of the dual injection In general, the performance of the two designs of swirl injectors
method was the highest over the entire range of the air mass flow (h = 45° and h = 60°) is consistently found to be lower than the
rate. This is mainly due to the homogenous flow pattern produced other injectors for both cases of steady and pulsating air injection
364 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365

0.3 0.3 30

0.25 0.25 25
Water mass flow rate, kg/s

Water mass flow rate, kg/s

0.2
0.2 20
water flow rate (synchronized)

Efficiency, %
0.15 0.00s delay (synchronized)
water flow rate (Alternating)
0.15 15
0.25s delay Efficiency (synchronized)
0.1 0.50s delay Efficiency (Alternating)
0.1 10
0.75s delay
0.05
1.00s delay (Alternating) 5
0.05

0
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004
0 0
Air mass flow rate, kg/s 0 0.0005 0.001 0.0015 0.002 0.0025 0.003 0.0035 0.004 0.0045

(a) Effect of air pulsation delay on the output water flow rates Air mass flow rate, kg/s

Fig. 17. Performance of the dual injector (50% radial 50% axial) airlift pump at 1 Hz
30 in synchronized and alternating modes.

25 0.00s delay (Synchronized)

0.25s delay 30

20 0.50s delay
Efficiency, %

+20%
0.75s delay 25
15
1.00s delay (Alternating)
Predicted Effeciency (%)

10 20
-20%

5
15

0
0 0.001 0.002
Air mass flow rate, kg/s
(b) Effect of air pulsation delay on the pump efficiency
Fig. 16. The Effect of the delay on the performance of the dual injector (50% radial
50% axial) airlift pump at 1 Hz.
regimes as can be seen in Figs. 7, 8 and 15. Similar to the other
injectors, the water flow rate increases with the increase of the
air mass flow rate. The maximum water flow rate reached approx-
imately 0.25 kg/s for the pulsating swirl injector of h = 45° at air
flow rates greater than 3  103 kg/s as shown in Fig. 7. In the
steady injection mode, the swirl injectors were capable of deliver-
ing water at a maximum efficiency of 7.2% at an air flow rate of
103 kg/s. Both swirl injectors have shown higher discharge flow
rates in the pulsating injection mode in comparison with the
steady injection mode over the entire range of air mass flow rate.
Additional experimental investigation for pulsating mode in the
case of dual injection is performed. In these experiments, the pul-
sation is controlled so that axial and radial injectors either start at
the same time or time delay between injector is allowed as shown
in Fig. 16. The performance of airlift pump using dual air injector
found to strongly depends on the mode of air pulsating. In order
to achieve a maximum water flow rates disregards the pump effi-
ciency, air pulsation with synchronized dual injection found to
offer better solution as shown in Fig. 17. On the other hand, when
efficiency is the main concern and the readily available air source
on site needs to be conserved, alternating air injection mode found
to improve the pump performance by approximately 24%.
In the present study, the mathematical description presented
above is validated using the experimental results obtained for dif-
ferent air injectors only for the design consideration purposes. This
comparison between the predicted pump efficiencies and the
0.003 0.004 10
5 Slug and Slug-Churn Flow Paern
Annular Flow Paern
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Measured effeciency (%)
Fig. 18. Comparison between the measured and predicted efficiency of the airlift
pump operating with different air injectors.
measured for different air injectors is presented in Fig. 18. The
figure shows an agreement between the experiments and the
predicted value of the efficiency within ±20%. A minimum
deviation between the predicted and measured values of the pump
efficiency is obtained for the data that represent slug and intermit-
tent flow pattern. The average deviation is calculated based on root
mean square values between the results of the present calculation
and the experimental results is about 20%, which is considered to
be acceptable to design airlift pumps for practical applications. It
should be noted that the model is evaluating the overall perfor-
mance of the pump as a transfer device and the flow patterns effect
in the model is mainly exist in the void fraction correlation utilized
in the calculations. In order to extend the range of model
applicability, different void fraction models taking into account
flow pattern change and phase interaction is required.
4. Conclusion
The effect of air injection methods on the performance of airlift
pumps was investigated experimentally. All experiments were
conducted at a submergence ratio of 0.5 and for both steady and
 W.H. Ahmed et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 70 (2016) 354–365
pulsating air injection. The pump performance was investigated
under different injection methods; namely radial, axial, dual and
swirl under both steady and pulsating injection modes. In the
steady air injection regime, the results have shown that dual injec-
tion outperformed axial and radial injections because of its high
efficiency over the entire range of air mass flow rate. In the pulsat-
ing injection regime, the liquid flow rate increased at lower air
injection rates and the maximum efficiency point has shifted to a
lower air flow rate. On the other hand, the swirl injector behaved
like a typical radial or axial injector; however, it neither did deliver
more water flow rate nor consumed less power to lift the water. In
addition, changing the angle of swirl did not show any significant
change in the performance of the airlift pump. The results obtained
for the case of pulsating axial injection at 1 Hz indicated that the
maximum efficiency has astonishingly increased by 60% over that
of typical steady axial injection and by 24% over that of steady dual
injection (50% radial and 50% axial). Finally, the pulsating air injec-
tion has proven to increase the efficiency of the airlift pump and
further investigation on the dual pulsating injection is suggested.
These findings are found to present new strategies for operating
airlift pumps and a new direction in the research involves airlift
pump design.
Acknowledgments
The support of the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at King
Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) Grant No.
IN111023 is gratefully acknowledged.
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