Holdup in vertical two and three phase flow Part I: Theoretical analysis

Abstract

Abstract A general one‐dimensional theory for predicting the average holdup or column concentration in three phase flow is formulated. The analysis takes into account the local relative velocity between the phases, the non‐uniform flow and holdup distribution across the column, and the effect of the concentration of the dispersed phase on the relative velocity. The present theory is compared with the previous analyses for two phase flow reported in the literature and it is shown that all of them are special cases of the general theory proposed here.