https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01169-6
Regular Article
Performance comparison of capacitance-based flowmeter with gamma-ray attenuation-based two-phase flowmeter for determining volume fractions in an annular flow regime’s components
1
Institute of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Duy Tan University, 700000, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2
Faculty of Electrical – Electronic Engineering, Duy Tan University, 550000, Da Nang, Vietnam
3
Imec-Vision Lab, Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
4
Institute of Optics and Quantum Electronics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, 07743, Jena, Germany
5
Division of Nuclear Physics, Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
6
Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
7
Hanoi University of Mining and Geology, No 18, Vien street, Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi, Vietnam
8
Electrical Engineering Department, Kermanshah University of Technology, Kermanshah, Iran
Received:
5
August
2020
Accepted:
29
January
2021
Published online:
4
February
2021
Precise metering of the void fraction is one of the important problems in the oil, chemical and petrochemical industries. For void fraction measurement, there are different kinds of sensors with different configurations. In this regard, the capacitance-based sensor and gamma-ray attenuation-based sensor are very well known as two most accurate and widely used sensors. In this paper, we report, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time a comparison between these two sensors in an annular air–oil flow. Simulations were accomplished with benchmarked COMSOL Multiphysics software and MCNPX code. Results show that the general sensitivity of gamma-ray sensor is ~ 90% higher than the general sensitivity of capacitance-based sensor. For a more accurate comparison, momentary sensitivity factors for a variety void fractions in both sensors were obtained. In the low void fraction range, the gamma-ray sensor has much better performance; however, in the high void fraction range, the capacitance-based sensor has a better performance. In the range of 0.9–1 void fractions, the momentary sensitivity of capacitance-based sensor is ~ 67% higher than that of gamma-ray attenuation-based sensor.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
