Plataforma de aquisição e gerenciamento de dados utilizando uma rede de sensores resistivos para estudos de escoamentos bifásicos

Abstract

Two-phase gas-liquid flows are found in many industrial applications. In the petroleum industry, two phase flow are usually encountered confined to pipes, for instance, in oil and gas extraction and processing. In the past, several studies have been performed to investigate two-phase flows under controlled conditions at small and medium scale test facilities, whereas working fluids are often water and air. Such studies support the development of flow models and engineering correlations. In this work, a data acquisition and management system is introduced, in which 4 distributed sensors (expansible to up 32 sensors) are connected through a CAN bus. The data management system was developed using web technologies, allowing multiple simultaneous connections, providing a complete platform to acquire, store, visualize and share experimental data. The sensors’ operating principle is based on measurement of electrical conductivity of flowing media in order to distinguish liquid and gaseous phase in a two-phase air-water flow. The resistive sensors are low cost, minimally invasive, and have high temporal resolution (2 kHz). CAN bus protocol was chosen due to its robustness and possibility to cover long distances at high data transfer. All collected data are stored in a centralized database, allowing online visualization, and access to experimental data from external network. Initial results have shown the potential of the proposed platform as a flexible and reliable system for two-phase flow investigation and the associated data management.