Electrical Conductivity Based Flow Regime Recognition of Two-phase Flows in Horizontal pipeline

B. Karki, Y. Faraj, M. Wang

School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds,

Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom pmbk@leeds.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

An experimental method of resolving flow regimes by utilizing the conductivity data measured by Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) is presented. The method applies Boolean logic and frequency analysis of the ERT signal in order to identify five typical flow regimes in horizontal pipe namely: bubble, plug, slug, stratified and annular. The relative conductivity signal obtained from the tomograms is converted to binary form in order to perform Boolean logical operation with the binary templates of typical flow patterns. The overall conductivity of the tomogram is used to extract frequency information of the flow. Flow pattern is identified by the statistical analysis of the combination of this information. The recognition method was evaluated using experimental data from horizontal pipeline for different flow conditions. The identification of the flow regimes from the method was verified using the conductivity images from ERT.

Keywords electrical resistance tomography, flow regime recognition, multiphase flow