Virtual mass effects in two-phase flow

The effect of virtual mass on phase separation during the acceleration of a two-phase mixture was studied. Virtual mass can be regarded as an induced inertia on the dispersed phase which is accelerating relative to the continuous phase, and it was found that the virtual mass acceleration is objective, implying an invariance with respect to reference frame. An objective form of the virtual acceleration was derived and required parameters were determined for limiting cases. Analysis determined that experiments on single bubble nozzle/diffuser flow cannot readily discriminate between various virtual mass acceleration models.