Water holdup measurement in kerosene–water two-phase flows

Abstract

This paper proposes an intrusive method for measurement of water holdup based on water layer thickness in horizontal pipes. Water layer thickness is measured by a capacitance probe, which is made of a metal wire with an insulating film. The capacitance is linearly proportional to the water layer thickness and is independent of water salinity and its distribution. Seven thicknesses over the cross section of the pipe are measured simultaneously to compute water holdup. A curve of water layer thickness as a function of time is compared with a flow structure photo and the measured time-averaged water holdup is compared with that of a quick-closing valve (QCV) system. The experiments were carried out in kerosene-oil two-phase flows with high water fraction in horizontal pipes of 29 mm diameter. Four flow patterns with continuous water are reported, namely wavy stratified flow (WS), three-layer flow (3 L), water and dispersed oil in water flow (W&DO/W) and dispersed oil in water flow (DO/W). The results show that the layer thickness curves are in reasonable agreement with the flow structures to different extents under different flow patterns and that the accuracies of the measured water holdup mainly depend on flow patterns. The relative error limits of water holdup are −15.2% for WS, 12.9% and −14.5% (positive and negative) for 3 L, 34.9% for W&DO/W and 15.8% for DO/W.