Dry Patch Stability of Shear Driven Liquid Films

The breakdown of the liquid film at the wall in annular gas-liquid flow may lead to the formation of a stable dry patch. For the case of heat transfer surfaces this causes a hot spot. Dry patch stability depends on a balance of body and surface forces. In the present study the film is driven by the interfacial shear force and the gravity force is negligible. Hartley and Murgatroyd proposed a model for dry patches of shear driven films based on a balance of surface tension and inertia but the film contact angle had to be adjusted to an unrealistic value to fit the model to experimental data. Murgatroyd later proposed an additional force because the wall and the interfacial shear stresses on the film are unbalanced near the dry patch. The magnitude of the net shear force on the film is determined by a characteristic length, λ, over which this imbalance occurs. However, Murgatroyd did not validate the model with a mathematical solution for the distribution of the shear stresses but determined λ empirically to fit the experimental data. A new computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solution of the flow field in the film around the dry patch has been obtained. The CFD results confirm Murgatroyd’s hypothesis, although the details are more complex. In addition new experimental data for adiabatic upward annular air-water and air-ethylene glycol flows provide further validation for Murgatroyd’s model.