Study on electrodynamic sensor of multi-modality system for multiphase flow measurement

Accurate measurement of multiphase flows, including gas/solids, gas/liquid, and liquid/liquid flows, is still challenging. In principle, electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) can be used to measure the concentration of solids in a gas/solids flow and the liquid (e.g., oil) fraction in a gas/liquid flow, if the liquid is non-conductive. Electrical resistance tomography (ERT) can be used to measure a gas/liquid flow, if the liquid is conductive. It has been attempted to use a dual-modality ECT/ERT system to measure both the concentration profile and the velocity profile by pixel-based cross correlation. However, this approach is not realistic because of the dynamic characteristics and the complexity of multiphase flows and the difficulties in determining the velocities by cross correlation. In this paper, the issues with dual modality ECT/ERT and the difficulties with pixel-based cross correlation will be discussed. A new adaptive multi-modality (ECT, ERT and electro-dynamic) sensor, which can be used to measure a gas/solids or gas/liquid flow, will be described. Especially, some details of the electrodynamic sensor of multi-modality system such as sensing electrodes optimum design, electrostatic charge amplifier, and signal processing will be discussed. Initial experimental results will be given.     

Thermo-fluid dynamic analysis of wet compression process

Wet compression systems increase the useful power output of a gas turbine by reducing the compressor work through the reduction of air temperature inside the compressor. The actual wet compression process differs from the conventional single phase compression process due to the presence of latent heat component being absorbed by the evaporating water droplets. Thus the wet compression process cannot be assumed isentropic. In the current investigation, the gas-liquid two phase has been modeled as air containing dispersed water droplets inside a simple cylinder-piston system. The piston moves in the axial direction inside the cylinder to achieve wet compression. Effects on the thermodynamic properties such as temperature, pressure and relative humidity are investigated in detail for different parameters such as compression speeds and overspray. An analytical model is derived and the requisite thermodynamic curves are generated. The deviations of generated thermodynamic curves from the dry isentropic curves (PV^γ = constant) are analyzed.     

Orifice plate meter wet gas flow performance

Orifice plate meters are often used to measure wet gas flows. Research into the wet gas response of the horizontally installed orifice plate meter is discussed in this paper. Consideration is given to the significant influence of the wet gas flow pattern, as this has previously been found to be relevant to the wet gas response of other differential pressure type flow meters. A wet gas flow correlation for 2″ to 4″ orifice plate meters has been developed from multiple data sets from four wet gas flow test facilities. This corrects the liquid induced gas flow rate error for a known liquid flow rate to ±2% at a 95% confidence level.     

High flow-rate ultrasonic seeder

Application of optical techniques to gaseous flows usually requires seeding the fluid with tracers sufficiently small to follow the flow, added in suitable concentrations. This work describes the design and manufacture of a seeder based on ultrasonic atomization of aqueous solutions or other fluids of similar viscosity, capable of operating in a continuous way with high atomization rates. It includes a dozen piezoceramic disks that oscillate at 1.65 MHz, generating droplets with Sauter mean diameter in the range of 4–5 μm and rates over 0.6 g/s when working with water. To test its performance, the device has been used to seed a simple free air jet issuing from a 3.5 cm diameter pipe. Initially the seeding density is very satisfactory, but if only water is nebulized the droplets evaporate in a short time and the concentration becomes too low when moving downstream. The situation can be greatly improved mixing the water with a less volatile liquid. Here, a small percentage of glycerol (5% in volume) has been added to the water to extend the droplet lifetime, although in general, atomization rate strongly decreases when increasing the liquid viscosity. The seeded flow has been visualized, and the 3D velocity field has been successfully measured using stereoscopic particle image velocimetry.     

Horizontally installed cone differential pressure meter wet gas flow performance

Differential pressure (DP) meters which utilise a cone as the system’s primary element are increasingly being used to measure wet natural gas flows (i.e. mixtures of natural gas, light hydrocarbon liquids and water). It is therefore important to understand this meter’s response to wet natural gas flows. Research into the wet gas response of the horizontally installed cone DP meter is discussed in this paper. Consideration is given to the significant influence of the liquid properties on wet gas flow patterns and the corresponding influence of the flow pattern on the cone DP meter’s liquid phase induced gas flow rate prediction error. A wet natural gas flow correlation for 4 in. 0.75 beta ratio cone DP meters with natural gas, hydrocarbon liquid and water flow has been developed from multiple data sets from three different wet gas flow test facilities. This corrects the liquid induced gas flow rate prediction error of a wet gas flow up to a Lockhart–Martinelli parameter of 0.3, for a known liquid flow rate of any hydrocarbon liquid/water ratio, to ±4% at a 95% confidence level.     

Wet gas meter based on the vortex precession frequency and differential pressure combination of swirlmeter

A wet gas meter, based on combination of two dissimilar output signals from swirlmeter, i.e. the vortex precession frequency and the differential pressure of swirlmeter, was designed and investigated in low pressure wet gas flow. A wet gas measurement model with the simultaneous equations from the two correlations of swirlmeter has been established, and then the iterative solution algorithm is given. The proposed wet gas meter predicts the gas mass flow rate errors within ±8% from 91.3% tested samples, and the liquid mass flow rate errors within ±20% from 89.2% tested samples, which may be used to meter both gas and liquid flow rates for wet gas flow with X?0.12$X?0.12$. In view of installation, maintenance and cost, the proposed approach is cost-effective due to using only a flow sensor.     

A V-Cone meter measurement correlation in low pressure wet gas based on Chisholm model

To gain a deeper understanding of the performance of V-Cone meter in low pressure wet gas measurement, the over-reading of the V-Cone meter was experimentally investigated in the present study. The equivalent diameter ratio of the V-Cone meter is 0.55. The experimental fluids were air and tap water. The operating pressure and the gas volume fraction ranged from 0.1 MPa to 0.4 MPa and 97.52%–100%, respectively. The results showed that the existing V-Cone wet gas correlation, which was developed for the medium and high pressure wet gas cannot be well extended to the low pressure conditions. The Chisholm exponent monotonically decreased with the ratio of liquid-to-gas mass flow rate increasing, and was almost not affected by the gas to liquid density ratio and the gas densiometric Froude number in the present test ranges. A measurement correlation dedicated for the low pressure wet gas was developed. In the present cases, the relative deviation of the gas mass flow rate predicted by the new correlation was within ±4.0% and ±3.0% under the 95% and 90% confidence level, respectively; the average relative deviation was 0.046%. Our results provide insights into the measurement performance of V-Cone meter in low pressure wet gas and may help to develop a more comprehensive wet gas correlation.     

Imaging conductive materials with high frequency electrical capacitance tomography

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) is known as an imaging technique for dielectric permittivity imaging. A novel ECT sensor model at a high excitation frequency is proposed to examine the capability of the ECT system to image both conductivity and permittivity contrasts. The proposed model uses a complex impedance forward model for the ECT system. This new model indicates that in higher excitation frequency both conductive and dielectric imaging may be feasible. Normally, capacitance tomography is designed for the measurements of imaginary part and resistance tomography is used to take the measurements of real part. The drawback of a typical capacitance tomography at a low excitation frequency, such as 200 kHz is that it cannot be used to measure the conductive phase of a conductive/dielectric mixed fluid, e.g. the gas/water flow. By increasing the excitation frequency, the capacitive impedance of the conductive material decreases and dielectric phenomena of the conductive fluid dominates so that it is possible to use capacitance tomography to characterise the dielectric/conductive flows. This paper presents a development of capacitance tomography with a high excitation frequency in measuring the gas/liquid mixture i.e. gas/water and gas/oil multiphase distributions. Both theoretical and experimental results are presented to verify this feasibility study.     

Wet gas metering technique based on slotted orifice and swirlmeter in series

Wet gas flow is a subset of gas–liquid two-phase flow, and wet gas metering is gaining considerable attention due to its importance in the nuclear, oil and gas industry. Wet gas meter based on slotted orifice and swirlmeter combination in series was designed and investigated. A wet gas measurement model with the simultaneous equations from the two flowmeters' correlations has been established, and then an iterative solution algorithm is given. The novel proposed approach predicts the gas mass flow rate relative errors within ±6% from 89.2% tested samples, and the gas mass flow rate relative errors within ±20% from all tested samples, which is accepted for many wet gas applications. Therefore, it implies that the proposed wet gas metering technique may be used to meter both gas and liquid flow rates for wet gas flow at the Lockhart Martinelli parameter X≤0.12.     

Research on wet gas separation method based on swirl and ejection cycle technology

Gas-liquid co-production often occurs in the middle and late stages of natural gas production. Efficient wet gas separation is very important in natural gas transportation and measurement. The traditional separation device has a relatively low separation efficiency due to the flow patterns, a new type of pipe separator was designed based on the swirl and ejection cycle technology. A new systematical separation procedure with three main steps was proposed simultaneously. The wet gas was forced to form an annular flow by a swirler. Then, the liquid film flows into the annular gap. The wave layer was introduced into the swirl separation again with the self-circulating ejection system for fine separation finally. Laboratory experiments and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations show that the additional swirl process can decrease the flow pattern influence effectively, and the separation efficiency can increase to more than 90%. The separation efficiency is mainly determined by the gas superficial velocity, and while the velocity of the inlet gas is less than 21 m/s, the separation efficiency is up to 93%. The separation efficiency prediction model was established based on liquid film porosity, and the prediction relative error is less than 10%. The new device, the separation procedure, and the test results can provide constructive technical reference for the real-world pipe separator application.     

A CFD study of wet gas metering over-reading model under high pressure

The venturi flow meter is increasingly being preferred in multiphase flow measurement because of its shorter upstream and downstream straight sections, less influenced by the flow pattern and relatively small pressure loss. However, when the venturi is used for wet gas measurement, the over-reading phenomenon occurs due to the presence of a small amount of liquid. Many scholars have established over-reading models to correct the measured values of wet gas. Regrettably, the applicability of these over-reading models under actual high pressure operating conditions has not been verified. Therefore, this review focuses on numerical simulation of the flow of wet gas in the venturi tube under high pressure conditions (11MPa/13MPa/15 MPa). The discrete phase model (DPM) and the standard k-ε model was employed in this review. The simulations results reveals the flow characteristics of wet gas in venturi tube, which includes the flow field distributions, droplet concentration distributions and wall pressure profile distributions, and indicates that the over-reading values increases with the increase of Lockhart-Martinelli parameters and gas volume flow rate, but decreases with the increase of pressure. Moreover, the ISO model has the best performance under high pressure conditions.     

基于双节流装置的湿气测量方法

湿气作为一种石油天然气行业经常出现的流体,对于湿气的准确测量具有重要的意义。目前常用的方法是在气液分离之后采用单相仪表进行计量,而这种方法成本较高,因此为实现湿气的气液两相在线不分离测量,设计一种基于类内锥和长喉径类文丘里组合的双节流湿气流量测量装置,提出一种基于三级差压信号的测量方法,引入差压信号的比值作为建模的关键参数。同时建立并比较研究此双节流装置的4套湿气测量模型在实验室和现场的表现。经实验室验证,平均气相测量精度为2.13%,平均液相测量精度6.68%。现场性能测试结果表明未经修正的测量模型平均气相测量误差为7.87%,平均液相误差为15.96%,经二次修正后可实现平均气相测量误差优于±3%,液相测量满度误差优于±10%。     

非闭合电极电容层析成像传感器在冻土测试中的应用

为了实现电容层析成像技术对冻土冻结冰峰面的在线、非侵入测试,研制出了满足冻土测试要求的非闭合电极电容层析成像传感器,并对该种传感器的电容分布特性进行了实测;确定出了适合冻土测试的的高、低介电常数的标定物质;搭建了冻土一维冻结实验系统.对含水量8%的湿土样冻结过程的冰峰面迁移进行了电容层析成像测试,并利用IMNSNOF图像重建算法重建出了冻结过程各时刻的冻结截面物质分布图像,由图像可确定出冻土中已冻土、未冻区以及冰峰面的位置.电容层析成像测试结果与温度测试结果相吻合.     

Investigation on the swirlmeter performance in low pressure wet gas flow

Wet gas flow is a subset of gas-liquid two-phase flow, and the swirlmeter has been used in wet gas flow metering more and more recently. The swirlmeter performance in low pressure wet gas flow was investigated. It is found that the entrained liquid present in a gas stream tends to induce a negative bias in the gas flow rate reading of swirlmeter comparing with equal gas flow rate. When the Lockhart-Martinelli parameter X, which is closely related to the liquid fraction, is bigger than a threshold value, the swirlmeter will not properly work due to the disappearing of vortex precession. It is also found that the liquid-induced gas flow rate reading errors of swirlmeter are dependent on X and the gas densiometric Froude number Fr_g. A correlation for swirlmeter in low pressure wet gas flow is proposed, and it corrects the liquid-induced gas flow rate errors to an accepted accuracy under the tested conditions. It implies that the swirlmeter with the proposed correlation and the known liquid fraction may be used to meter the gas flow rate in wet gas applications with a relatively low liquid fraction.     

轴流式气液旋转分离器及其作为湿气流量计的试验研究

应用旋转固壁替代静止固壁对轴流式旋风分离器的结构进行改进，设计了轴流式气液旋转分离器。试验测试了轴流式气液旋转分离器的机械可靠性和分离效率，测试表明，在一定的工况下，轴流式气液旋转分离器的分离效率最高可达99．99％，且在整个测试过程中没有出现机械故障。测试中发现，轴流式气液旋转分离器还可用作湿气流量计，即从湿气流中分离出气相和液相，通过测量湿气条件下旋转表面的转速和被分离液体的流量并进行插值后，可得到气体的流量。     

Characterisation of a high concentration ionic bubble column using electrical resistance tomography

Attentions has been given to ionic liquids as an alternative physical solvent for carbon dioxide (CO₂) absorption because of their potential for gas selectivity, absorption capacity and low desorption energy by tailoring the molecules. Ionic liquid normally have a high viscosity, which influences the performance of absorption processes, and therefore, efficiency. This study investigates the hydrodynamics of ionic liquids in a two-phase gas–liquid flow by determination of the bubble formation, distribution of gas and bubble velocity profiles. A dual plane electrical resistance tomography (ERT) system and an optical imaging device were applied to a bubble column reactor of 50 mm internal diameter for the study. The model ionic liquids were aqueous solutions of sodium chloride (NaCl) with conductivity adjusted by altering the concentration of NaCl. Gas holdup has been estimated by analyses of conductivity data obtained from ERT by application of Maxwell's relationship which reveals significant increase in gas holdup as ionic concentration increases and is in good agreement with other studies.     

矩形电容层析成像传感器仿真模拟和实验测量

常规电容层析成像传感器为规则对称方形或圆形结构,其测量和成像算法已相对成熟.由于受循环流化床旋风分离器入口结构段的限制,上述传感器结构已不能应用在旋风分离器入口段的测量,因此为了研究大型化循环流化床多旋风分离器并联布置入口段固体颗粒浓度分布,提出和设计了一种矩形非常规电容传感器,该传感器为12电极结构,在每个入口段的短边布置2个电极,长边布置4个电极,成像敏感场仿真计算基于Ansoft-Maxwell软件.对此传感器进行了静态仿真模拟研究和静态实验测量,对不同激励电压和频率测量结果进行分析,并对测量结果进行误差分析,得到矩形不规则电容传感器最佳测量参数(激励电压和频率),并对循环流化床分离器入口段进行了动态测量.结果表明,这种矩形非常规电容传感器可以用于循环流化床冷态试验台的旋风分离器入口段的直接测量,测量结果对改进旋风分离器的布置方式有参考意义.     

Wear behavior of natural diamond tool in cutting tungsten-based alloy

Natural diamond tool is quickly worn out while cutting a workpiece made of a tungsten-based alloy. This paper presents a new approach to reduce tool wear: ultrasonic vibration cutting of a workpiece made of a tungsten-based alloy based on gas–liquid atomization cooling. An atomizer is a device which mixes carbon dioxide gas with vegetable oil and changes the liquid into minute droplets, which are carried by a stream of gas. Atomizer is also a device that incorporates a venture device to translate liquid into a gas stream. The atomized minute droplets act as the cooling and lubricating medium to protect the tools. The system is designed to ensure that droplets can spread all over the surface of a work piece. At a constant spindle speed, feed rate, and cutting depth, the experiments were carried out for investigating the effects of the tool vibration parameters, carbon tetrachloride liquid flow rate, carbon dioxide gas flow, and gas–liquid mass ratio on the tool wear. The experiments showed that the technology of ultrasonic vibration with gas–liquid atomization cooling effectively prolongs the tool life in cutting tungsten-based alloy.     

基于单V锥节流装置的湿气气液流量在线测量

提出采用两相质量流量系数对V锥节流装置湿气测量误差进行修正,试验研究洛克哈特-马蒂内利参数、气体密度弗鲁德数以及气液密度比对V锥节流装置两相质量流量系数的影响规律。V锥节流装置的节流比为0.55,试验介质为压缩空气和水,气液密度比为0.002 445~0.006 083,气体密度弗鲁德数为0.3~2.0,洛克哈特-马蒂内利参数为0.01~0.34。结果表明,两相流量系数随洛克哈特-马蒂内利参数增加而线性增大,同时还受气体密度弗鲁德数和气液密度比的影响。获得了两相质量流量系数与洛克哈特-马蒂内利参数、气体密度弗鲁德数和气液密度比的定量关系,建立湿气流量测量的半经验关联式。利用V锥节流装置前后锥体对湿气具有不同的差压响应特性,获得了其差异性的影响规律,建立单节流元件双差压的湿气气液流量双参数测量方程。在试验范围内,测得的气相质量流量相对误差小于±5.0%,平均误差为2.2%;液相质量流量相对误差小于±20.0%,平均误差为9.8%。该方法具有系统简单、成本低廉、精度较高的特点。     

Visualisation of gas–oil two-phase flows in pressurised pipes using electrical capacitance tomography

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) was used to image various two-phase gas–oil horizontal flows on a 7.62 cm (3 in.) pressurised test loop. ECT is a novel non-invasive technique for imaging mixtures of electrically non-conducting substances. One of its most promising applications is the visualisation of gas–oil flows. This work presents a series of imaging experiments using a pressure-resistant ECT sensor. By varying the oil and gas flow rates, different flow regimes were established in the test loop. ECT images were obtained for each case and compared with (a) the flow observed through a transparent section in the loop and (b) the prediction of the Taitel–Duckler flow map. The results confirm the suitability of ECT for imaging gas–oil flows.