Sensor wire-mesh de impedância para investigação de escoamentos multifásicos

Abstract

Multiphase flows are present in many industrial activities such as in exploration, production and transportation of oil and gas, in which is common to find a mixture of oil, gas and water flowing inside pipes. In many cases this type of flow determines the efficiency and safety of the processes and equipment where they occur. In this way, experimental investigations of multiphase flow are of great value to develop new theoretical models and to validate predictions made by computer simulations, hence increasing the understanding of the flow phenomena. In this work, a new measuring electronics to operate a wire-mesh sensor (WMS) is introduced. Initially proposed for visualization of two-phase flow, the WMS performs the imaging of the phase distribution of a cross section based on the multiplexed measurement of an electrical property of the fluid in contact with the mesh grid of the sensor. With the passage of flow through the sensor, the phase mapping is realized by intrusive electrodes at high temporal and spatial resolution. To allow its use in multiphase flows, the new electronics developed in this work simultaneously measures the electrical permittivity and electrical conductivity of the media in the mesh grid. The basic idea is to activate the electrodes with a signal composed of two distinct frequencies. Besides the development of the electronics' hardware, a software was also implemented, by which data can be acquired and for future investigation. The performance of the new instrument has been verified by use of components (RC network) with reference values. The developed system was used to generate images of a multiphase mixture of air-oil-water in static and dynamic conditions, showing good results. Thus, the main contribution of this work is to make available a new tool for the investigation of multiphase flows.