Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎

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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with

multi-electrode conductance sensor
Yanyan Shi a, Meng Wang a,n, Minghui Shen b
a
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang 453007, China
b
Henan Xinxiang Power Supply Company of State Grid, Xinxiang 453000, China

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Measurement of oil-water flow parameters is of great importance in petroleum industry. Due to its
Received 25 March 2016 complicated flow structure, it is still a challenging problem. This paper presents the use of a multi-
Received in revised form electrode conductance sensor and a dual-plane electrical resistance tomography (ERT) sensor to measure
4 July 2016
phase fraction and velocity in a horizontal oil-water flow. A series of experiments is carried out on a two-
Accepted 8 July 2016
phase flow loop using mineral white oil and tap water. Taking advantage of different conductivity values
of two fluids, the estimation of phase fraction is obtained by conductance measurements. By correlating
Keywords: voltage fluctuation signals measured from upstream and downstream sensor, the velocity of oil-water
Oil-water flow flow is evaluated. The phase fraction and velocity measured from two techniques are compared. Ex-
Multi-electrode conductance sensor
perimental results show that the multi-electrode conductance sensor is more suitable to estimate phase
ERT
fraction of oil-water mixture. For the velocity measurement, cross correlation velocity obtained with
Phase fraction
Velocity multi-electrode conductance sensor is more closer to the mixture velocity of oil-water mixture.
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Horizontal oil-water two-phase flows are widely encountered
in petroleum industry, where the two phases are produced and
transported together. Determination of the flow parameters in oil-
water flows is of great importance in industrial production and
much attention has been paid on it (Chen et al., 2015; Elseth et al.,
2010; Rodriguez and Oliemans, 2006; Xu, 2007). However, the
accurate measurement of the oil-water parameters is still an un-
solved issue due to the complexity of the flow structure and it has
not been studied to the extent of gas-liquid flow (Wang et al.,
2013).
Phase fraction is a fundamental parameter in determining the
pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient of the two-phase
mixture. Extensive researches have been carried out on elucidating
the phase fraction characteristics of two-phase flows. A technique
known as electrical resistance tomography (ERT) is increasingly
being applied in monitoring the phase fraction of two-phase flow
in various process industries (Olerni et al., 2013). It is suitable to
the condition where there is a high conductivity contrast between
the two components and where the continuous phase is an elec-
trical conductor. As a non-intrusive measurement method, ERT
maps electrical conductivity distribution in the pipelines.
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangmeng@htu.cn (M. Wang).
However, the accuracy of the phase fraction derived from ERT is
highly dependent on the electrical measurement and the image
reconstruction algorithm (Ismaila et al., 2005). Velocity is another
important parameter in characterizing two-phase flow. Cross
correlation technique has been frequently used in the two-phase
flow measurement (Al-Wahaibi and Angeli, 2008; Zhai et al.,
2013). By cross-correlating fluctuations measured at two positions
which are axially separated by a short distance, the velocity is
determined. A dual-plane ERT sensor can be used to estimate the
cross correlation velocity of the two-phase flow, while its accuracy
can be highly sensitive to the image planes separation and data
acquisition rate. Given the fact that the phase fraction estimated
by ERT may be potentially erroneous, it is necessary to provide a
reference measurement adopting an independent technique. One
of the simplest methods is the conductance measurement tech-
nique which measures the electrical conductance of the two-phase
components close to a system of electrodes. This technique can be
successfully employed when the continuous phase of the two-
component pipe flows is electrically conductive and there is a
conductivity contract between the two components. There are
numerous possibilities to arrange a system of electrodes for the
purpose of phase fraction measurement (Ceccio and George, 1996).
Conductance sensor with ring-shaped electrodes flush mounted
on the inner wall of the pipe is a popular structure. Ring electrodes
were first adopted by Asali et al. (1985) for measuring the average
liquid film thickness in vertical gas-liquid annular flow. Andreussi
et al. (1988) employed a pair of ring electrodes to measure liquid

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020
0920-4105/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i
2 Y. Shi et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎

volume fraction of gas-water two-phase flow. Tsochatzidis et al. I current

16
(1992) extended the flat electrode theory to ring electrode and excitation
15 1
presented a theoretical treatment for measuring liquid volume
fraction. Lucas and Waltont (1997) adopted a conductance probe 14 2
with two pairs of ring electrodes to predict the flow rate of bubbly oil-water
flow based on cross correlation method. Fossa (1998) made a flow 13 3 voltage
comparison between the performance of the plate and ring elec- measurement
trodes, drawing a conclusion that the ring electrode was more 12 4
suitable in practical application. Lucas et al. (2000) constructed six
ring electrodes around the circumference of a plastic body for 11 5
solid-water flow measurement and provided reference measure-
electrode 10 6
ments of ERT. Devia and Fossa (2003) changed the shapes of reg-
ular ring electrodes and obtained a linear relationship between 9 7
8
measured conductance and gas fraction. Karapantsios and Papara
(2008) used ring electrodes to estimate the longitudinal variation Fig. 2. Excitation and measurement scheme for ERT.
of liquid fraction in the foam. Abbas et al. (2011) presented an
advanced Venturi meter with ring electrodes for measuring gas variation of mixture conductance, while the conductance is related
volume fraction at the inlet and throat of the Venturi in annular to the conductivity of each phase and the phase fraction. By
gas–liquid flow. Du et al. (2012) obtained water holdup in vertical measuring the potential difference U23, the phase fraction in oil-
upward oil-water flow with four ring electrodes. water flow can be estimated. Its mathematical model can be pre-
The objective of this paper is to present the application of a sented as
ring-shaped multi-electrode conductance sensor. The phase frac- ⎧ ∇2ϕ = 0
tion of the oil-water flow can be determined by measuring the ⎪
conductivity of the mixture and combining the result with the ⎪ ∂ϕ ⎛D −d D + d⎞
⎪ = + I0⎜ e ≤z≤ e ⎟
electrical measurement theory. As to the axial velocity of the oil- ⎨ ∂r ⎝ 2 2 ⎠
⎪
water mixture, it can be estimated by cross-correlating the voltage ⎪ ∂ϕ ⎛ De + d D − d⎞
fluctuations measured at two positions in the mixture con- ⎪ ∂r = − I0⎜⎝ − 2 ≤z≤− e ⎟
⎩ 2 ⎠ (1)
ductivity. Experiments are carried out on a horizontal oil-water
two-phase flow loop. A parallel investigation, using the dual-plane where Φ is the potential distribution, I0 is the current applied on
ERT system, is also performed on this flow loop to investigate the the exciting electrode, De is the distance between the electrodes E1
phase fraction and velocity and compare with the multi-electrode and E2, d is the height of the exciting electrodes.
conductance sensor. For the ERT sensor, sixteen rectangular-shaped electrodes ar-
ranged in a planar ring around the pipe are used, as shown in
Fig. 2.
2. The operational principle A known electrical current is injected through neighboring
electrodes and voltage is measured successively from all other
In the measurement of two-phase flows, electrical methods adjacent electrodes pairs. The distribution of the sensing field
depend on the electrical properties of the two phases which are changes when the two-phase mixture varies. The voltages mea-
significantly different. For oil-water flow in the current investiga- sured on the boundary reflect the changes of the medium in the
tion, water is the conductive phase and oil is the nonconductive pipe. The sensing field can be described as
phase. Therefore, the conductivities of the two phases differ.
For the multi-electrode conductance sensor, six ring-shaped ⎧ ∇⋅( σ⋅∇ϕ) = 0 ( in the sensitive field)
⎪
electrodes mounted on the inner pipe are located at six axial po- ⎪
⎪ ∂ϕ →
sitions to measure both the phase fraction and the velocity of oil- ∫
⎨ E + σ⋅ ∂n d s = + I ( on the injected electrode)
water flow, as shown in Fig. 1. ⎪
⎪ ∂ϕ →
Current is established between the electrodes E1 and E2 and ⎪ ∫ σ⋅ d s = − I
⎩ E− ∂n
( on the sink electrode)
(2)
voltage is measured from the electrodes M2-M3 to estimate the
phase fraction. The changes of the oil-water flow cause the where s represents the conductivity distribution, ϕ represents
electrical potential, E represents electrical field density, n is the
Voltage measurement outward pointing normal component and I represents current

U34 U23 U12

signal from signal from
u downstream sensor u upstream sensor

E2 M4 M3 z M2 M1 E1 correlator
t
t
r
downstream sensor upstream sensor
I0
Current excitation

Flow direction
flow direction
Fig. 1. Excitation and measurement scheme for multi-electrode conductance
sensor. Fig. 3. Cross correlation technique.

Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i
 Y. Shi et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎
excited on the electrode.
To measure the velocity of the oil-water flows in electrical
measurement, cross correlation technique is adopted. The funda-
mental principle underpinning cross correlation flow measure-
ment is the tagging of signals caused by fluid turbulence within
the pipe. Signals are measured and recorded when the mixture
passes two axially positioned sensors on the pipelines, as illu-
strated in Fig. 3.
The signal detected on the upstream sensor reappears on the
downstream sensor after a certain period and the velocity can be
calculated with cross correlation technique if the distance be-
tween the two sensors is known. This process can be summarized
as
T 0.001 m. The distance between the exciting electrodes is 0.2 m, the
R xy( τ ) = lim
T →∞
∫0 u( t )u( t + τ )dt
where Rxy(τ) is defined as the cross correlation function, u(t) and u
(t þ τ) represent the voltage fluctuating signal measured from
upstream and downstream sensor, T is the total time period for the
acquired data.
The velocity V is then obtained as
V = L/τmax
where L is the distance between upstream and downstream sen-
sor, and τmax is the time delay taken for the mixture to travel the
distance L.
For the multi-electrode conductance sensor measurement,
when the oil-water mixture passes between the sensing electrodes
M1 and M2 denoted as the upstream sensor, a fluctuation is gen-
erated in U12. As the mixture passes between the sensing elec-
trodes M3 and M4 denoted as the downstream sensor, a fluctuation
is generated in U34. By cross correlating U12 and U34, the velocity
can be estimated by the method of cross correlation. For the ve-
locity measurement by the ERT sensor, two identical sixteen-
electrode arrays mounted parallel on the pipeline are applied
which are denoted as upstream sensor and downstream sensor
respectively. Cross correlation technique is then employed to cal-
culate the velocity.
3. Experimental setup for horizontal oil-water two-phase flow
3.1. Multi-electrode conductance sensor measuring system
The measuring system for the multi-electrode conductance, as
depicted in Fig. 4 is designed to measure both the phase fraction
U34 measurement circuit
voltage follower programmable amplifier
U23 measurement circuit
U12 measurement circuit
PXI- 6251
M4 M3 M2 M1 E1
flow direction
PXI-1042Q
current excitation
digital I/O control
Fig. 4. Measuring system for six-electrode conductance sensor.
Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i
3
and axial velocity of the oil-water two-phase flow. It is comprised
of four parts: the multi-electrode conductance sensor, the current
excitation unit, the voltage measurement circuit, the PXI-based
digital control and data acquisition system.
The multi-electrode conductance sensor consists of six alloy
titanium ring-shaped electrodes axially separated and flushed on
the inner wall of a transparent Perspex flowing pipe. E1 and E2 are
exciting electrodes and connected to an alternating current ex-
citation unit. M2 and M3 are phase fraction measuring electrode.
M1-M2 and M3-M4 stand for upstream and downstream correla-
tion sensor used for velocity measurement. The heights of the
exciting electrodes and the measuring electrodes are 0.005 m and
0.003 m respectively, while the thickness of all electrodes is
(3) distance between phase fraction electrodes is 0.06 m, and the
distance between upstream sensor and downstream sensor is
0.077 m.
A bi-directional square wave signal of 20 kHz is applied to the
exciting electrodes as the current excitation. The presented current
excitation unit is made up of a voltage generator and a voltage
controlled current source. On one hand, the alternating current
prevent the corrosion and polarization of the electrodes, and on
(4)
the other the system efficiency is greatly improved as the filter
circuit and demodulation circuit are eliminated compared with the
sinusoidal excitation.
The current passing through the measuring region gives rise to
three potential differences: U12 between the measuring electrodes
M1 and M2; U23 between the measuring electrodes M2 and M3;
and U34 between the measuring electrodes M3 and M4. Each of
these potential differences is passed into one of three identical
voltage measurement circuits including a voltage follower and a
programmable amplifier. For example, M3 and M4 are each con-
nected to a voltage follower with high input impedance to ensure
negligible current is drawn from the measuring electrodes. The
output from the voltage follower is fed into a programmable am-
plifier as the potential difference is usually very small.
A PXI-based system from National Instrument Company is se-
lected as the digital control and data acquisition. PXI-1042Q is
performed as the master chassis. PXI-8106 is an embedded con-
troller offering a high-performance platform ideal for real-time
test and control applications. PXI-6251 is a high-speed M series
multifunction data acquisition board optimized for superior ac-
curacy at fast sampling rates which has 16 analog inputs for data
acquisition and 24 digital I/O for logic control. The data processing
is realized by Labview 8.6 to get the fluctuation signals which
reflect conductance characteristics of the two-phase flow. The
sampling frequency is set to 1 kHz.
1
Dimensionless voltage
0.8
digital I/O control
0.6
0.4
DAQ 0.2
Host 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
+
PXI-8106 Reference water fraction
Fig. 5. Static calibration result for stratified flow.
4 Y. Shi et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎

1 Hw = U * (6)
measurement value
According to the theory of Maxwell, for uniformly distributed
Eq.(7) spherical droplets, the relationship between water fraction Hw and
Dimensionless voltage

dimensionless voltage U* can be expressed as

0.9
3U *
Hw =
2 + U* (7)

The oil-water mixture of either oil based or water based flow in

0.8 which dispersion phase moves in bubbles is another commonly
observed phase distribution. It can be simulated by putting a
number of plastic spheres with known diameter into a water-filled
pipe. The experimental calibration result, together with the Eq. (7),
0.7 is shown in Fig. 6. It indicates that Eq. (7) can be used to predict
0.7 0.8 0.9 1
the water fraction.
Reference water fraction
Fig. 6. Static calibration result for bubbly flow. 3.2. Dual-plane ERT measuring system

It has been mentioned that the measured voltage is directly
related to the phase fraction of two-phase flow. As the mixture
passes the multi-electrode conductance sensor, the measured
voltage from M2-M3 can be used to estimate the phase fraction. To
eliminate the influence of water conductivity, a dimensionless
voltage U* has been defined as
U * = Uw/U
where Uw is the voltage measured when the pipe is full of water
and U is the voltage measured when oil-water mixture is in the
pipe.
In horizontal oil-water two-phase flow, stratified flow is mostly
encountered as the oil flows at the top of the pipe while the water
flows at the bottom as the result of gravity. Oil is nonconducting
medium which is similar with the gas. Therefore, in the static
calibration of stratified flow, water with known volume is in-
troduced into a horizontal positioned empty pipe with the dia-
meter of 0.05 m and the responding voltage is measured. The
experimental calibration result is shown in Fig. 5.
The relationship between the water fraction Hw and the di-
mensionless voltage U* for stratified flow calibration can be fitted
as
excitation unit
current excitaion
FPGA
plane selection control signal
Dual-plane ERT measuring system, based on PXI platform and
FPGA technique, consists of a dual-plane ERT sensor, an electrode
excitation unit and a data acquisition unit, as depicted in Fig. 7.
Two rings of ERT sensors are mounted on the inner wall of a
Perspex pipe. Each of the two planes has sixteen rectangular
electrodes which are made of alloy titanium and located equidis-
tantly around the pipe wall. The distance between the two ERT
(5) planes is chosen to be 0.05 m. Alternating current is injected into a
pair of adjacent electrodes and the potential difference is then
measured from other pairs of adjacent electrodes. For a single ERT
plane with sixteen electrodes, 104 independent measurements are
normally made and used.
The electrode excitation unit is designed to provide a highly
stable sine wave output to the electrodes on according plane. It
consists of a 60 kHz current excitation circuit which is made up of
a sine wave generator and a voltage controlled current source, a
plane selection circuit, and a multiplexer for injecting alternating
current into appropriate pairs of electrodes. The logic control of
the unit is implemented by PXI-6251 and FPGA.
The voltages from the other pairs of electrodes are amplified
and filtered by a high-pass filter. Then the processed voltage signal
is directly acquired by PXI-5105 which possesses the function of
eight-channel synchronous sampling. FPGA is used to generate a
digital trigger signal to make the acquisition work. In the mea-
surement, the sampling frequency is set to 10 MHz. Compared
with the traditional dual-plane ERT system, the efficiency of the
presented system is improved as demodulation and low-pass filter
are eliminated due to the high performance of the PXI-based in-
strument. It allows data to be acquired at the rate of 1250 frames/s
for one-plane working and 625 frames/s for dual-plane working.

PXI-6251 3.3. The oil-water two-phase flow facility

elctrode multiplexer
The horizontal oil-water two-phase flow experiments are car-
ried out on a two-phase flow loop facility. A sketch of the ex-
perimental facility is illustrated in Fig. 8.
control signal

Host
PXI-1042Q The experimental fluids are mineral white oil (density: 841 kg/
Plane 2 Plane 1 + m3, dynamic viscosity: 0.0147 Pa s) and tap water (density:
PXI-8106 998 kg/m3, dynamic viscosity: 0.00101 Pa s), which are initially
stored in separate tanks. Oil and water are pumped into the pi-
flow direction peline and flow rates are measured before the two fluids are
mixed. A pressure gauge is fitted into the inner wall of the pipe
PXI-5105
and used to measure the pressure. A thermocouple is adopted to
provide the monitoring of the temperature. The test section
HPF PXI-5105
manufactured from Perspex tube, with an internal diameter of
0.05 m, is installed 15.5 m downstream from the inlet which al-
data acquisition unit
lows 310 D distance for flow development. To avoid the effect of
Fig. 7. Measuring system for dual-plane ERT. outflow on the measurement, the test section is positioned 1.3 m

Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i
 Y. Shi et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎ 5

water flowmeter Mixer

tank
pump valve flow Direction
flowmeter
oil
tank
pump valve multi-electrode
conductance sensor back Light
separator
dual-plane ERT sensor camera pressure
thermocouple gauge
Fig. 8. Schematic of the experimental facility.
Superficial velocity of oil, m/s

1 1.0

Predicted water fraction

0.8
0.1

0.6

0.01
0.1 1
Superficial velocity of water, m/s 0.4
0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
stratified flow ST&MI flow DO/W&W flow DO/W flow
Reference water fraction
Fig. 9. Flow regimes of the oil-water flow in the experiment.
Fig. 10. Predicted water fraction versus reference water fraction.

upstream from the outlet. The oil-water flow mixture is finally fed
into a separator, where they separate due to the difference of their 2.2 multi-electrode conductance sensor
density. Once separated, the oil occupies the upper layer while the 2.0 dual-plane ERT sensor
water fills the lower layer of the separator. The two fluids are then
Cross correlation velocity, m/s

1.8
pumped back to the oil and water tank respectively.
1.6
The test section consists of a high-speed camera, a multi-
electrode conductance sensor and a dual-plane ERT sensor. The 1.4
high-speed camera is only used to observe the flow patterns of the 1.2
oil-water mixture. The multi-electrode conductance sensor and 1.0
the dual-plane ERT sensor are installed in series on the test sec- 0.8
tion, both of which are employed to investigate the phase fraction
0.6
and velocity of the oil-water flow. The measured voltage signals
are acquired by a PXI-based data acquisition system. 0.4
0.2
0.0
4. Experimental results
-0.2
0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0
In the oil-water two-phase flow experiments, the flow rate of
Mixture velocity, m/s
water is fixed and the flow rate of oil is increased gradually for one
group of data. Once finished, the flow rate of water is changed and Fig. 11. Cross correlation velocity versus mixture velocity.
another group of data is obtained. The flow rate of water is in the
range of 3.9–10.2 m3/h while the flow rate of oil is in the range of For ST flow, an obvious oil-water interface is observed and no li-
0–12.2 m3/h in the measurement. The pressure is in the range of quid drops exist in the oil and water phase. For ST&MI flow,
30–173 kPa and the temperature of oil is 20–26 °C. With regards to fluctuation appears at the oil-water interface and there exists
the test section of 0.05 m inner diameter, the superficial velocity of dispersed liquid drops around the interface. For DO/W&W flow,
water and oil is in the range of 0.56–1.45 m/s and 0–1.726 m/s dispersed oil drops scatter in water on the upper part of the pipe
respectively. For each measuring point, the data acquisition re- while water flow on the lower part. For DO/W flow, oil drops are
cording time is 20 s uniformly dispersed in water.
The oil-water two-phase flow investigated in this paper is As illustrated in Fig. 9, the flow patterns of oil-water two-
water continuous flow. According to the study by Trallero et al. phases in the experiments can be classified into two categories:
(1997), flow patterns observed in this study are shown in Fig. 9. separated flow and dispersed flow. Separated flow is the flow in
It mainly consist of stratified flow (ST), stratified flow with which the two phases are continuous in the axial direction, while
mixing at the interface (ST&MI), dispersion of oil in water and the continuity is lost in either or both phases for dispersed flow.
water flow (DO/W&W) and dispersion of oil in water flow (DO/W). The static calibration, given in Eqs. (6) and (7), are applied to

Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i
6 Y. Shi et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎
2.4
mixture velocity
2.2
cross correlation velocity
2.0
1.8
1.6
Velocity, m/s
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
-0.2
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Water fraction
Fig. 12. The effect of water fraction on cross correlation velocity.
investigate the performance of the multi-electrode conductance
sensor for phase fraction measurement. The results are plotted in
Fig. 10. The reference water fraction is calculated with the flowrate
of separate phases measured from the flowmeters.
It shows in Fig. 10 that the predicted water fraction is a little
higher than the reference value and the measurement error be-
comes smaller when the water fraction is increased. This is due to
the fact that higher water fraction decreases the possibility of
water discontinuity in the oil-water mixture which minimizes the
measurement error. The average relative error of the measurement
is around 5%.
The electrodes of the ERT sensor are positioned around the
circumference of the pipe. When measuring phase fraction of the
separated oil-water flow, most of the electrodes lies in non-con-
ducting oil phase and the measurement signal is very small. Only
signals on the electrodes immersed in water can be effectively
measured. Therefore, the ERT system is not suitable to estimate the
phase fraction of oil-water two-phase flow compared with the
multi-electrode conductance sensor.
Cross correlation technique can be used to obtain the velocity
of the oil-water flow by cross-correlating the signals from up-
stream sensor and downstream sensor. Fig. 11 shows the re-
lationship between the cross correlation velocity and the mixture
velocity of the oil-water two-phase flow in the horizontal pipe
using the multi-electrode conductance sensor and dual-plane ERT
sensor.
As shown in Fig. 11, the cross correlation velocity calculated
based on the measurement of multi-electrode conductance sensor
is closer to the mixture velocity. It indicates that the distribution of
the pulse structure along the flow direction is relatively short for
the oil-water two-phase flow and the cross correlation electrodes
of the multi-electrode conductance sensor are able to capture the
pulse structure. The dual-plane ERT sensor is sensitive to the phase
distribution on the cross section of the pipe and the structural
movement can be cross-correlated. However, parts of the cross
correlation velocity obtained by the multi-electrode conductance
sensor are much lower than the mixture velocity.
To explain this, the influence of the water fraction on the cross
correlation velocity is studied, as shown in Fig. 12.
It can be seen that the calculated cross correlation velocity
deteriorates when the water fraction of the oil-water flow is
higher than 80%. Meanwhile, the oil fraction becomes lower and
the characteristic fluctuation in the two-phase flow is not obvious
for the multi-electrode conductance sensor, which makes it diffi-
cult to accurately measure the cross correlation velocity. In con-
trast, the cross correlation measurement based on the dual-plane
Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i
ERT sensor is comparatively stable indicating that it is more sen-
sitive to the changes of the discrete phase.
5. Conclusions
A multi-electrode conductance sensor and a dual-plane ERT
sensor have been applied to obtain simultaneous measurements of
the phase fraction and velocity for oil-water two-phase flow in a
0.05 m inner diameter horizontal pipe. The responding measuring
systems are designed in the study. Experimental results indicate
that the multi-electrode conductance sensor is more appropriate
for the phase fraction estimation in the oil-water flow with an
average relative error around 5%. However, the measurement error
of the dual-plane ERT sensor is larger compared with the multi-
1.0 electrode conductance sensor as only signals on the electrodes
which are immersed in the water can be effectively measured for
separated oil-water flow regime. Results also indicate that the
cross correlation velocity obtained by the multi-electrode con-
ductance sensor approximates the mixture velocity of the oil-
water flow better than that of the dual-plane ERT sensor. The
proposed method can also be used to study other two-phase flow
in which conductive medium is the continuous phase.
Funding
This work was supported by the Key Scientific and Technolo-
gical Project of Henan Province of China (grant number
152102210084) and the Science Foundation for Young Scholars of
Henan Normal University of China (grant number 2014QK12).
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Please cite this article as: Shi, Y., et al., Characterization of oil-water two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe with multi-electrode
conductance sensor. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2016.07.020i