Flow characteristics within the wall boundary layers of swirling steam flow in a pipe comprising horizontal and inclined sections

Handling and utilization of steam flow efficiently to obtain various tangible industrial outcomes relies mainly upon how to optimize various flow parameters like boundary layer thickness, skewness, shear stress, and turbulent dissipation for minimum losses such as pressure and heat. Swirling steam flow, driven by a propeller through a circular duct along horizontal and inclined surfaces presents an interesting flow regime that includes the boundary layer flows close to the wall of the pipe and weak and uniform flow that prevails across the inner region of the pipe. Such flow was investigated here with a specially designed experimental facility. Convective Instabilities were observed that propagate along the axial direction in a nonlinear fashion. It was observed that the operating conditions could be optimized for measuring the shear stresses based on the intersection of the profiles under the effect of variations in the inlet pressure of steam and the rotational speed of the propeller. We found that the flow transformed from positive to negative skewness when the rotational speed of the propeller was raised from 4–14 thousand per minute at 10 bars of constant inlet steam pressure. More area came under the effect of reduced skin friction when the rotational speed of the propeller was raised. More turbulent energy was found to be dissipated when the rotational speed of the propeller was raised. It was found that yet the dissipation of the turbulent energy takes place under the joint effect of inlet pressure of steam and the rotational speed of the propeller, but the exact effect of any one of these two operating parameters still needs to be determined and requires further investigation.