Bubble coalescence dynamics in a high-Reynolds number decaying turbulent flow

Abstract This study experimentally investigates bubble size evolution and void fraction redistribution in an unexplored, coalescence-dominated regime of a decaying turbulent bubbly flow. The flow is generated downstream of a regenerative pump in a duct, with bulk Reynolds number (Re) $\sim \mathcal{O}(10^5)$ , Taylor-scale Reynolds number (Re $_\lambda$ ) $\sim \mathcal{O}(10^3)$ and void fraction ( $\phi$ ) $\sim \mathcal{O}(1\,\%)$ , where the inlet turbulence is extremely intense (turbulence intensity $\gt 30\,\%$ ) but decays rapidly along the duct. Shadowgraph imaging and particle shadow velocimetry are used for measurements. The experimentally obtained turbulent dissipation in the duct flow decays as $\varepsilon \sim \mathcal{L}^{-2}$ , where $\mathcal{L}$ is the axial position, in close agreement with the homogeneous isotropic turbulence prediction of $\varepsilon \sim \mathcal{L}^{-2.2}$ . High-speed imaging and statistical analysis reveal that bubble coalescence dominates over breakup across most of the domain, leading to monotonic growth in the Sauter mean diameter ( $d_{32}$ ) and progressive broadening of the bubble size distribution. The normalised extreme-to-mean diameter ratio ( $\mathcal{D}$ ) increases axially and asymptotically from ${\sim} 1.9$ (breakup regime) and saturates at ${\sim} 2.2$ (coalescence regime), indicating the emergence of a quasi-self-similar bubble size distribution. The probability density function of the bubble diameter exhibits a dual power-law tail with exponents $-10/3$ and $-3/2$ near the duct inlet. However, after a few hydraulic diameters, a single $-3/2$ power-law scaling emerges, indicating a regime of pure coalescence in which all bubbles are smaller than the Hinze scale. The cumulative distribution plotted against $d/d_{32}$ shows that the slope decreases and the distribution width increases with both axial position and void fraction $(\phi )$ . Although classical Hinze scaling gives $d_{\textit{H}} \propto \mathcal{L}^{0.9}$ , our theory for $d_{32}$ and $d_{99.8}$ (99.8th percentile bubble diameter) in a pure-coalescence regime predicts the slower law $\propto \mathcal{L}^{0.5}$ , which our experimental results confirm – indicating negligible breakup and sub-Hinze growth. Concurrently, in contrast to current models, transient $\phi$ profiles evolve from nearly uniform to sharply core-peaked Gaussian distributions in the developing regime, with increasing centreline values and decreasing near-wall values, due to lift-force reversal. These results provide the first spatially resolved characterisation of coalescence-dominated bubbly flows at high Re, advancing the design of industrial systems as in nuclear cooling and multiphase forming processes (e.g. paper manufacturing, chemical reactors).