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Solid thin films have been deposited on stainless steel 314 (SS 314) substrates in a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor at different flow rates of natural gas mostly methane (CH₄). The purpose of this paper was to investigate experimentally the variation of thin film deposition rate with the variation of gas flow rate.

During experiment, the effect of gap between activation heater and substrate on the deposition rate has also been observed. To do so, a hot filament thermal CVD unit is used. The flow rate of natural gas varies from 0.5 to 2 l/min at normal temperature and pressure and the gap between activation heater and substrate varies from 4 to 6.5 mm.

Results show that deposition rate on SS 314 increases with the increase of gas flow rate. It is also seen that deposition rate increases with the decrease of gap between activation heater and substrate within the observed range. These results are analyzed by dimensional analysis to correlate the deposition rate with gas flow rate, surface roughness and film thickness. In addition, friction coefficient and wear rate of SS 314 sliding against SS 304 under different normal loads are also investigated before and after deposition. The obtained results reveal that the values of friction coefficient and wear rate are lower after deposition than that of before deposition.

In this study, thin film deposition rate on SS 314 was investigated using CVD. The obtained results were analyzed by dimensional analysis to correlate the deposition rate with gas flow rate, surface roughness and film thickness. The friction coefficient and wear rate of SS 314 were also examined before and after deposition.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a prediction method of gas-liquid two-phase flow patterns and reveal the flow characteristics in the suction chamber of a centrifugal pump.

A transparent model pump was experimentally studied, and the gas-liquid two-phase flow in the pump was numerically simulated based on the Eulerian–Eulerian heterogeneous flow model. The numerical simulation method was verified from three aspects: the flow pattern in the suction chamber, the gas spiral length and the external characteristics of the pump. The two-phase flow in the suction chamber was studied in detail by using the numerical simulation method.

There are up to eight flow patterns in the suction chamber. However, at a certain rotational speed, only six flow patterns are observed at the most. At some rotational speeds, only four flow patterns appear. The gas spiral length has little relationship with the gas flow rate. It decreases with the increase of the liquid flow rate and increases with the increase of the rotational speed. The spiral flow greatly increases the turbulence intensity in the suction chamber.

A method for predicting the flow pattern was proposed. Eight flow patterns in the suction chamber were identified. The mechanism of gas-liquid two-phase flow in the suction chamber was revealed. The research results have reference values for the stable operation of two-phase flow pumps and the optimization of suction chambers.

The purpose of the present investigation is to compute the circulation flow of a liquid in a closed chamber when the liquid is fired by a gas jet through number of nozzles.

The conservation equations for mass and momentum have been solved in a closed container along with the conservation of volume fraction of the secondary phase in order to take into account the gas phase present in the liquid. The drag force created by the gas on the liquid has been incorporated in the momentum equation as a source term and the resulting equations have been solved numerically using a finite volume technique in an unstructured grid employing a phase coupled pressure linked velocity solver for the pressure correction equation, which is usually known as the Eulerian Scheme for two phase flow solution. An eddy viscosity based k‐ε turbulence model for the mixture was considered to update the fluid viscosity with iterations and capture the turbulence in the overall mixture rather than computing the individual turbulence in both the phases, which was found to be extremely time‐consuming and computationally unstable to some extent.

The model thus developed was tried to predict the circulation flow rate in an experimental setup where air was injected to drive the water in a long U tube setup. The computed circulation flow rate was found to be within 15 percent deviation from the experimentally observed values. The circulation flow rate of water was found to be increasing with the injected airflow rate. After this model validation, circulation flow rate of steel in an industrial size Ruhrstal‐Haraeus (RH)‐degasser was computed by injecting argon into the liquid steel through the up‐leg of the RH vessel. It was found that the circulation flow rate of steel in the RH degasser was increasing when the argon flow was being varied from 800 to 1,600 NL/min, which confirms the industrial findings.

The present computation could not use the energy equation to compute the swelling of the gas bubbles inside the chamber due to huge computing time requirement.

The present computation could compute realistically the circulation flow rate of water in a U tube when fired by a gas jet by using a two‐phase Eulerian model and hence this model can be effectively used for industrial applications where two‐phase flow comes into picture.

The original contribution of the paper is in the use of the state‐of the‐art Eulerian two‐phase flow model to predict circulation flow in an industrial size RH degasser.

In this paper, a single module of cross-flow membrane humidifier is evaluated as a three-dimensional multiphase model. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of volume flow rate, dry temperature, dew point wet temperature and porosity of gas diffusion layer on the humidifier performance.

In this study, one set of coupled equations are continuity, momentum, species and energy conservation is considered. The numerical code is benchmarked by the comparison of numerical results with experimental data of Hwang et al.

The results reveal that the transfer rate of water vapor and dew point approach temperature (DPAT) increase by increasing the volume flow rate. Also, it is found that the water recovery ratio (WRR) and relative humidity (RH) decrease with increasing volume flow rate. In addition, all mixed results decrease with increasing dry side temperature especially at high volume flow rates and this trend in high volume flow rates is more sensible. Although the transfer rate of water vapor and DPAT increases with increasing the wet inlet temperature, WRR and RH reduce. Increasing dew point temperature effect is more sensible at the wet side is compared with the dry side. The humidification performance will be enhanced with increasing diffusion layer porosity by increasing the wet inlet dew point temperature, but has no meaningful effect on other operating parameters. The pressure drop along humidifier gas channels increases with rising flow rate, consequently, the required power of membrane humidifier will enhance.

According to previous studies, the three-dimensional numerical multiphase model of cross-flow membrane humidifier has not been developed.

A prototype gas prover was constructed to serve as the Italian primary standard for gas flow rates in the range 0.1 ml/min to 2 l/min. The new prover is used to calibrate high‐quality industrial standards, as well as the MFCs used in microelectronic fabrications and preparation of reference gas mixtures.Design/methodology/approach – The prover measures gas volume transfers caused by displacements of a 120 mm dia. motor‐operated piston, which is introduced into a temperature‐controlled chamber containing up to 3 l of the required working gas at near ambient conditions. Gas delivery is made at constant rate, whereas possibly variable incoming flows are measured at constant pressure. Displacements of the piston are measured by an optical interferometer.Findings – The analysis shows that standard uncertainty ranges between 0.013 and 0.03 percent. Owing to the very accurate control and measurement of both pressures and temperatures, these figures refer equally to volume and mass flowrate. Experimental comparisons with similar national standards at LNE‐France and NIST‐USA confirmed the consistency of measurement results in the three Nations.Research limitations/implications – The gas prover should be used with inert gases only.Practical implications – The national industrial gas standards and the best flow transducers can now be calibrated accurately down to unprecedented flowrate values.Originality/value – The need for measurement of extremely low gas flows is quite recent, therefore possibly less than ten primary national standards are available today worldwide. Several completely different principles and designs have been developed; description of design and performance of each instrument is important to assess their respective merits. The described apparatus is innovative as regards measurement range, accuracy and control techniques.

A numerical simulation of a two‐phase dilute flow (droplet‐gas mixture) is carried out by using a finite volume method based on Riemann solvers. The computational domain represents a one‐ended pipe with holes at its upper wall which lead into an enclosure. The aim of this study is to determine the parameters of such a flow. More specially, an analytical solution is compared with numerical results to assess the mass flow rates through the vents in the pipe. Inertia effects dominate the dynamic behaviour of droplets, which causes a non‐homogeneous flow in the cavity. The unsteady effects are also important, which makes isentropical calculation irrelevant and shows the necessity of the use of CFD tools to predict such flows. No relation can be extracted from the numerical results between the gas and the dispersed mass flow rates across the holes. But a linear variation law for the droplet mass flow versus the position of the holes is pointed out, which is independent of the incoming flow when the evaporating effects are quite low.

The purpose of this paper is to present a three‐dimensional CFD model that simulates the pyrolysis, combustion and heat transfer phenomena in a refuse‐derived fuel (RDF) gasifier. Correlations between different operation conditions and the waste stack morphology are also investigated. Parametric studies are conducted to optimize operating conditions to achieve an even stack surface minimal the local oxidation in the waste stack.

This paper proposes a Lagrangian pyrolysis submodel which can be applied to determine the local pyrolysis rate and porosity field by introducing the local characteristic diameter of the waste solid sphere. The flow field is described by a single‐phase porous flow model using the SIMPLE algorithm with momentum extrapolation. A one‐step global reaction was adapted for the chemical reactions inside the gasifier.

Computational results produced three‐dimensional distribution of the flow field, temperature, species concentration, porosity and the morphology of the waste stack under different operation conditions. Some parametric studies were conducted to assess the effects of the inlet temperature and the feeding rate on the waste stack shape. The results demonstrated that the model can properly capture the essential physical and chemical processes in the gasifier and thus can be used as a predictive simulation tool.

Due to the lack of accurate reaction rate information, the computational results have not been directly compared against experimental data. Additional refinement and subsequent validation against prototype gasifier experiment will be reported in future work.

A full three‐dimensional computational model is developed for the complex two‐phase flow based on porous medium representation of the solid stack. A Lagrangian pyrolysis model based on the characteristic diameter of the solid waste material was proposed to describe the pyrolysis rate history. The developed model reproduces correct physical and chemical behavior inside gasifier with adequate computational efficiency and accuracy.

Natural gas leak from underground pipelines could lead to serious damage and global warming, whose spreading in soil should be systematically investigated. This paper aims to propose a three-dimensional numerical model to analyze the methane–air transportation in soil. The results could help understand the diffusion process of natural gas in soil, which is essential for locating leak source and reducing damage after leak accident.

A numerical model using finite element method is proposed to simulate the methane spreading process in porous media after leaking from an underground pipe. Physical models, including fluids transportation in porous media, water evaporation and heat transfer, are taken into account. The numerical results are compared with experimental data to validate the reliability of the simulation model. The effects of methane leaking direction, non-uniform soil porosity, leaking pressure and convective mass transfer coefficient on ground surface are analyzed.

The methane mole fraction distribution in soil is significantly affected by the leaking direction. Horizontally and vertically non-uniform soil porosity has a stronger effect. Increasing leaking pressure causes increasing methane mole flux and flow rate on the ground surface.

Most existing gas diffusion models in porous media are for one- or two-dimensional simulation, which is not enough for predicting three-dimensional diffusion process after natural gas leak in soil. The heat transfer between gas and soil was also neglected by most researchers, which is very important for predicting the gas-spreading process affected by the soil moisture variation because of water evaporation. In this paper, a three-dimensional numerical model is proposed to further analyze the methane–air transportation in soil using finite element method, with the presence of water evaporation and heat transfer in soil.

The purpose of this study showcase a realistic model for estimating pressure drop at any production time in any location along the vertical flowing solid-gas well. Also to simulate the impact of solid particles on the pressure transient in gas well. The production of natural gas from the reservoir is always associated with entrained solid particle of different sizes, mainly sand particles and crystalline salts. Entrained solid transport along the gas phase has been a great concern for gas production engineer, as the detrimental consequences are often associated to desirable high operational parameters, such as rate and pressure transverse in producing well.

A variety of early models for predicting pressure transverse in gas wells were based on steady state flow equation that did not consider time factor, which results in inaccuracy at early production time. Some of the early investigators overlooked the effect of the solid on the pressure transverse phenomena in a gas well. Hence, there is a need for developing a model for estimating pressure transverse at all times in solid–gas well. This study presents an equation for pressure drop in flowing vertical well without neglecting any term in the momentum equation by the inclusion of accumulation and kinetic term.

The solution of the resulting differential equation gives functional relationship between solid–gas flow rates and pressure at any point in flowing well at any given production time. The results show improvement over previous studies, as the assumptions previously neglected were all considered.

A more realistic result that includes the initial unsteadiness phenomenon is obtained; hence, predicting pressure transient at any given production time has been established for both gas that flows along with solid particles and gas without particles. At the onset of production, the effect of all possible wellbore pressure losses is highly pronounced and decreased as the production time increases. The newly developed model, however, can be used at all depths. The effect of using the Sukkar and Cornell model is extremely adverse for the calculation of other parameters, such as flow rate, and carrying out economic analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to study the multi-phase flow behaviors in solid fluidization exploitation of natural gas hydrate (NGH) and its effect on the engineering safety.

In this paper, a multi-phase flow model considering the endothermic decomposition of hydrate is established and finite difference method is used to solve the mathematical model. The model is validated by reproducing the field test data of a well in Shenhu Sea area. Besides, optimization of design parameters is presented to ensure engineering safety during the solid fluidization exploitation of NGH in South China Sea.

To ensure the engineering safety during solid fluidization exploitation of marine NGH, taking the test well as an example, a drilling flow rate range of 40–50 L/s, drilling fluid density range of 1.2–1.23 g/cm3 and rate of penetration (ROP) range of 10–20 m/h should be recommended. Besides, pre-cooled drilling fluid is also helpful for inhibiting hydrate decomposition.

Systematic research on the effect of multiphase flow behaviors on the engineering safety is scare, especially for the solid fluidization exploitation of NGH in South China Sea. With the growing demand for energy, it is of great significance to ensure the engineering safety before the large-scale extraction of commercial gas from hydrate deposits. The result of this study can provide profound theoretical bases and valuable technical guidance for the commercial solid fluidization exploitation of NGH in South China Sea.