Experimental investigation of heat transport in homogeneous bubbly flow

We present results on the global and local characterisation of heat transport in homogeneous bubbly flow. Experimental measurements were performed with and without the injection of similar to 2.5 mm diameter bubbles (corresponding to bubble Reynolds number Re-b approximate to 600) in a rectangular water column heated from one side and cooled from the other. The gas volume fraction alpha was varied in the range 0 %-5 %, and the Rayleigh number Ra-H in the range 4.0 x 10(9)-1.2 x 10(11). We find that the global heat transfer is enhanced up to 20 times due to bubble injection. Interestingly, for bubbly flow, for our lowest concentration alpha = 0.5 % onwards, the Nusselt number (Nu) over bar is nearly independent of Ra-H, and depends solely on the gas volume fraction alpha. We observe the scaling (Nu) over bar proportional to alpha(0.45), which is suggestive of a diffusive transport mechanism, as found by Almeras et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 776, 2015, pp. 458-474). Through local temperature measurements, we show that the bubbles induce a huge increase in the strength of liquid temperature fluctuations, e.g. by a factor of 200 for alpha = 0.9 %. Further, we compare the power spectra of the temperature fluctuations for the single-and two-phase cases. In the single-phase cases, most of the spectral power of the temperature fluctuations is concentrated in the large-scale rolls/motions. However, with the injection of bubbles, we observe intense fluctuations over a wide range of scales, extending up to very high frequencies. Thus, while in the single-phase flow the thermal boundary layers control the heat transport, once the bubbles are injected, the bubble-induced liquid agitation governs the process from a very small bubble concentration onwards. Our findings demonstrate that the mixing induced by high Reynolds number bubbles (Re-b approximate to 600) offers a powerful mechanism for heat transport enhancement in natural convection systems.