Performance model evaluation of turbine flow meter in vertical gas-liquid two-phase flows

Abstract

Aiming at the need for flow measurement of gas-liquid flows in domestic gas well production, this paper proposes a measurement method based on the combination of the turbine flow meter (TFM) and a rotating electric field conductance sensor (REFCS). In experiments, the REFCS is used for the measurement of the gas holdup. To verify the applicability of the TFM models investigated in the previous study, for the modeling part, the mass, momentum and torque models are evaluated in vertical upward gas-liquid two-phase flows. In our model test, the meter factor model of TFM considers the effects of the slip ratio between the gas and liquid phases and flow patterns. In particular, the gas holdup involved in calculating the slip ratio in the model evaluation is obtained from the REFCS measurements. Model test results show the torque model has better volumetric flow rate prediction accuracy than the mass and momentum models. In the present study, the ranges of the liquid and gas phases are Qw = 2–30 m3/d and Qg = 1–16 m3/d, it was found that the average absolute deviation (AAD) in the predicted volume flow rate is equal to 1.23 m3/d and the average absolute percentage deviation (AAPD) is equal to 7.69%. The evaluated results presented in this paper will allow better estimates of the volumetric flow rates of gas-liquid flows based on the combined TMF and REFCS measurements during the monitoring of gas well production.