This paper presents a novel capacitance probe, i.e., paraUel-wire capacitance probe （PWCP）, for two-phase flow measurement. Using finite element method （FEM）, the sensitivity field of the PWCP is investigated and the optimum sensor geometry is determiend in term of the characterisitc parameters. Then, the response of PWCP for the oil-water stratified flow is calculated, and it is found the PWCP has better linearity and sensitivity to the variation of water-layer thickness, and is almost independant of the angle between the oil-water interface and the sensor electrode. Finally, the static experiment for oil-water stratified flow is carried out and the calibration method of liquid holdup is presented.
We generate a directed weighted complex network by a method based on Markov transition probability to represent an experimental two-phase flow. We first systematically carry out gas-liquid two-phase flow experiments for measuring the time series of flow signals. Then we construct directed weighted complex networks from various time series in terms of a network generation method based on Markov transition probability. We find that the generated network inherits the main features of the time series in the network structure. In particular, the networks from time series with different dynamics exhibit distinct topological properties. Finally, we construct two-phase flow directed weighted networks from experimental signals and associate the dynamic behavior of gas-liquid two-phase flow with the topological statistics of the generated networks. The results suggest that the topological statistics of two-phase flow networks allow quantitative characterization of the dynamic flow behavior in the transitions among different gas-liquid flow patterns.
Based on the conductance fluctuation signals measured from vertical upward oil-gas-water three-phase flow experiment, time frequency representation and surrogate data method were used to investigate dynamical characteristics of oil-in-water type bubble and slug flows. The results indicate that oil-in-water type bubble flow will turn to deterministic motion with the increase of oil phase fraction f o and superficial gas velocity U sg under fixed flowrate of oil-water mixture Q mix . The dynamics of oil-in-water type slug flow becomes more complex with the increase of U sg under fixed flowrate of oil-water mixture. The change of f o leads to irregular influence on the dynamics of slug flow. These interesting findings suggest that the surrogate data method can be a faithful tool for characterizing dynamic characteristics of oil-in-water type bubble and slug flows.
Oil reservoirs with low permeability and porosity that are in the middle and late exploitation periods in China＇s onshore oil fields are mostly in the high-water-cut production stage.This stage is associated with severely non-uniform local-velocity flow profiles and dispersed-phase concentration（of oil droplets） in oil-water two-phase flow,which makes it difficult to measure water holdup in oil wells.In this study,we use an ultrasonic method based on a transmission-type sensor in oil-water two-phase flow to measure water holdup in lowvelocity and high water-cut conditions.First,we optimize the excitation frequency of the ultrasonic sensor by calculating the sensitivity of the ultrasonic field using the finite element method for multiphysics coupling.Then we calculate the change trend of sound pressure level attenuation ratio with the increase in oil holdup to verify the feasibility of the employed diameter for the ultrasonic sensor.Based on the results,we then investigate the effects of oildroplet diameter and distribution on the ultrasonic field.To further understand the measurement characteristics of the ultrasonic sensor,we perform a flow loop test on vertical upward oilwater two-phase flow and measure the responses of the optimized ultrasonic sensor.The results show that the ultrasonic sensor yields poor resolution for a dispersed oil slug in water flow（D OS/W flow）,but the resolution is favorable for dispersed oil in water flow（D O/W flow） and very fine dispersed oil in water flow（VFD O/W flow）.This research demonstrates the potential application of a pulsed-transmission ultrasonic method for measuring the fraction of individual components in oil-water two-phase flow with a low mixture velocity and high water cut.
This paper presents the characteristics of a double helix capacitance sensor for measurement of the liquid holdup in horizontal oil–water two-phase flow. The finite element method is used to calculate the sensitivity field of the sensor in a pipe with 20 mm inner diameter and the effect of sensor geometry on the distribution of sensitivity field is presented. Then, a horizontal oil–water two-phase flow experiment is carried out to measure the response of the double helix capacitance sensor, in which a novel method is proposed to calibrate the liquid holdup based on three pairs of parallel-wire capacitance probes. The performance of the sensor is analyzed in terms of the flow structures detected by mini-conductance array probes.
