A three-phase flow visualization method using wire-mesh sensor based on continuous phase conductance compensation

Abstract

Oil-water-gas three-phase flows are frequently encountered in the chemical and petroleum industries. The accurate measurement of flow structures and flow parameters is of great significance for understanding the flow dynamics. Due to the significant differences in physical properties of the three phases, the flow structures of oil-water-gas flows are more complex compared with two-phase flow, which brings a great challenge to the measurement of flow parameters. In this study, a measurement system consisting of a conductance wire-mesh sensor (WMS) and distributed coaxial conductance sensors (CCSs) is used to visualize the oil-water-gas three-phase flow. The distributed CCSs are used to monitor the conductance changes of the continuous phase and to realize the real-time correction of the gas-phase distribution obtained from the WMS. The experimental results show that the measurement system can effectively avoid the influence of non-conductive oil phase on gas-phase distribution imaging, and thus improve the accuracy of gas volume fraction measurement in oil-water-gas three-phase flows.