Abstract: Based on the new concept water-cooled packed bed reactor,the resistance characteristics of air-water flow upward through sphere-filled channel have been studied experimentally.The channels are packed with glass spheres of which the diameters are 2,5 and 8mm respectively.Experimental results show that the pressure drop increases with the increase of gas-liquid mass flow rate,and has a certain relationship with the flow patterns.The particle diameter and porosity have great influence on the pressure drop at the same flow condition.The published pressure drop correlations are grouped into two types（the separate flow model and the homogeneous model）.The two types of correlations are compared and modified,combined with 234 group experimental data.It is found that:（1） the best agreement between measured and calculated values is obtained with the correlations based on the separate flow model,but the predictive ability is reduced with the increase of particle diameter.（2） the existing homogeneous model show the considerable discrepancies with this experiment values,however the modified homogeneous correlation is in good agreement with the experimental data.