Pressure drop and liquid holdup for two phase concurrent flow in packed beds

Pressure drop and liquid holdup for two-phase concurrent downward flow in packed beds were correlated for various types of packings by taking into account two hydrodynamic regimes: a poor and a high gas-liquid interaction regime. Foaming and non-foaming systems have been considered. In the poor interaction regime, the pressure drop was calculated as due to the gas flowing in a bed restricted by the presence of the liquid. A correlation valid for a free liquid trickling, modified in order to take into account the effect of the pressure drop, is proposed and used to correlate liquid holdup in the presence of a concurrent gas flow. In the high interaction regime, empirical correlations were proposed for both foaming and non-foaming systems. All the employed correlations fit experimental results from several authors better than those proposed in the literature.