Abstract
A method to measure the superficial velocity of the water phase in gas–water flow using an electromagnetic flowmeter (EMF) and rotating electric field conductance sensors (REFCSs) is introduced in this paper. An electromagnetic flowmeter instrument factor model is built and the correlation between electromagnetic flowmeter output and gas holdup in different flow patterns are explored through vertical upward gas–water flow dynamic experiments in a pipe with an inner diameter (ID) of 20 mm. Water superficial velocity is predicted based on pattern identification among bubble, churn, and slug flows. The experimental results show that water superficial velocity can be predicted fairly accurately for bubble, churn, and slug flows with a water cut higher than 60% (absolute average percentage deviation and absolute average deviation are 4.1057% and 0.0281 m/s, respectively). The output of the electromagnetic flowmeter is unstable and invalid in slug flows with a water cut below 60% due to the non-conducting gas slug is almost filling the pipe. Therefore, the electromagnetic flowmeter is not preferred to be used in such conditions.
Highlights
Gas–water two-phase flow widely exists in petroleum industrial production processes
The output model of an electromagnetic flowmeter (EMF) in a gas–water flow is established to realize the prediction for the water superficial velocity with the flow pattern considered
An EMF presents a good performance in single-phase water and uniform symmetric flow patterns
Summary
Gas–water two-phase flow widely exists in petroleum industrial production processes. Accurately predicting flow parameters, such as superficial velocity, is of great significance for dynamic monitoring in oil fields and oilfield development. The electromagnetic flowmeter (EMF) is widely used to measure flow rate due to its unique advantages: simple structure, high accuracy, and strong resistance to abominable measurement conditions [1,2,3,4,5] It shows good performance in single phase and uniform gas–water two-phase flows. Analyzed EMF measurement characteristics of uniform magnetic fields on the assumption that the flow structure of bubble and annular flows are symmetrical, based on the theory proposed by Bevir [9,10] This assumption was proved to be within 5% error by Mi et al [11] and they considered that this correlation of EMF in symmetrical flows (bubble/annular flow) can be applied to slug flows, which can be viewed as a combination of bubble flow and annular flow.
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