14.1. Introduction

A large number of flows encountered in nature and technology are a mixture of phases. Physical phases of matter are gas, liquid, and solid, but the concept of phase in a multiphase flow system is applied in a broader sense. In multiphase flow, a phase can be defined as an identifiable class of material that has a particular inertial response to and interaction with the flow and the potential field in which it is immersed. For example, different-sized solid particles of the same material can be treated as different phases because each collection of particles with the same size will have a similar dynamical response to the flow field.

Information is organized into the following subsections: