Flow filling a curved pipe

Hervé Michallet (1) , C. Mathis (1) , P. Maïssa (1) , F. Dias (1)

1 INLN - Institut Non Linéaire de Nice Sophia-Antipolis

A small scale experiment was designed to study the propagation of the front of a viscous fluid filling a curved pipe. Several Newtonian fluids with different viscosities and a non-Newtonian fluid have been used. The experiments show that there exists a minimum speed for completely filling the pipe, which depends on the parameters of the experiment (diameter $d$ and radius of curvature $R$ of the pipe, kinematic viscosity $\eta$ of the fluid). Appropriate dimensionless numbers are introduced to characterize the flow and optimal filling conditions.

Mots clés: pipe flow; non-Newtonian fluids; cements; multiphase flow

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Hervé Michallet, C. Mathis, P. Maïssa, F. Dias. Flow filling a curved pipe. Journal of Fluids Engineering, 2001, 123 (3), pp.686-691. ⟨10.1115/1.1374442⟩. ⟨hal-00260280⟩