For low-quality film boiling in tubes or rod bundles, the flow pattern may consist of a liquid jet-like core surrounded by a vapor annulus, i.e., inverted annular flow. The stability, shape, and break-up mechanisms of this liquid core must be understood in order to model correctly this regime and to develop appropriate interfacial transfer correlations. This paper reports on a study in which inverted annular flow was simulated in an adiabatic system. Turbulent water jets, issuing downward from long-aspect nozzles were enclosed within cocurrent gas annuli. Jet-core diameter and velocity, and gas-annulus diameter, velocity, and species were varied, yielding liquid Reynolds numbers up to 33,000, void fractions from 0.29 to 0.95, and relative velocities from near zero to over 80 m/s. Jet-core break-up lengths and secondarily, core break-up mechanisms, were observed visually, using strobe lighting
