Airlift pumps are considered an effective means of lifting deep ocean water due to their several advantages such as high reliability, simple structure, low cost and convenient maintenance.
The airlift pump is a fluid machine for raising liquids or slurries through a vertical pipe by injecting compressed air into the pipe near its mid position or lower end part, and its performance is therefore related to the state of multi-phase upflow in the pipe.
Rim Un Ryong, a researcher at the Faculty of Shipbuilding and Ocean Engineering, has conducted a numerical analysis of steady air–water two-phase flow in a vertical pipe of an airlift system based on a one-dimensional multi-fluid model.
He calculated the depth distributions of 6 physical quantities such as volumetric fractions and axial velocities of two phases, air density and pressure by solving the governing equations or by integrating the vector form of nonhomogeneous ordinary differential equation for two-phase flow interval.
He applied the proposed numerical model to a 7.86-meter-long vertical pipe and compared the results with antecedent theoretical and experimental results to validate its accuracy. The results showed good agreement.
If further information is needed, please refer to his paper “Numerical analysis of air–water two-phase upflow in artificial upwelling of deep ocean water by airlift pump” in “Computers and Fluids” (SCI).