Simultaneous Measurement of Size and Velocity of Microbubbles inside Opaque Tube Using X-ray PTV Technique

X-ray PTV 기법을 이용한 불투명 튜브 내부의 미세기포의 크기 및 속도 동시 측정

The microbubbles were used in various fields, such as turbulent control, drag reduction, material science and life science. The X-ray PTV using X-ray micro-imaging technique was employed to mea-sure the size and velocity of micro-bubbles moving in an opaque tube simultaneously. Micro-bubbles of $10{\sim}60{\mu}m$ diameter moving upward in an opaque tube (${\phi}$=2.7mm) were tested. Due to the different refractive indices of water and air, phase contrast X-ray images clearly show the exact size and shape of over-lapped microbubbles. In all of the working fluids tested (deionized water, tap water, 0.01 and 0.10M NaCl solutions), the measured terminal velocity of the microbubbles rising through the solution was proportional to the square of the bubble diameter. The rising velocity was increased with increasing mole concentration. The microbubble can be useful as contrast agent or tracer in life science and biology. The X-ray PTV technique should be able to extract useful information on the behavior of various bio/microscale fluid flows that are not amenable to analysis using conventional methods.