Magnetic resonance velocity imaging of liquid and gas two-phase flow in packed beds

Single-phase liquid flow in porous media such as bead packs and model fixed bed reactors has been well studied by MRI. To some extent this early work represents the necessary preliminary research to address the more challenging problem of two-phase flow of gas and liquid within these systems. In this paper, we present images of both the gas and liquid velocities during stable liquid–gas flow of water and SF₆ within a packing of 5 mm spheres contained within columns of diameter 40 and 27 mm; images being acquired using ¹H and ¹⁹F observation for the water and SF₆, respectively. Liquid and gas flow rates calculated from the velocity images are in agreement with macroscopic flow rate measurements to within 7% and 5%, respectively. In addition to the information obtained directly from these images, the ability to measure liquid and gas flow fields within the same sample environment will enable us to explore the validity of assumptions used in numerical modelling of two-phase flows.