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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

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Abstract

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Duy Tan University, Ho Chi Minh City, 700000, Vietnam

    Mohammadmehdi Roshani, Giang T. T. Phan, Nhut-Huan Phan & Hoai-Nam Tran

  2. Faculty of Electrical – Electronic Engineering, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, 550000, Vietnam

    Mohammadmehdi Roshani

  3. Imec-Vision Lab, Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Ehsan Nazemi

  4. Institute of Optics and Quantum Electronics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Ehsan Eftekhari-Zadeh

  5. Division of Nuclear Physics, Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Enrico Corniani

  6. Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Enrico Corniani

  7. Hanoi University of Mining and Geology, No 18, Vien street, Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Van Hao Duong

  8. Electrical Engineering Department, Kermanshah University of Technology, Kermanshah, Iran

    Gholam Hossein Roshani

Authors
  1. Mohammadmehdi Roshani
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  2. Giang T. T. Phan
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  3. Ehsan Nazemi
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  4. Ehsan Eftekhari-Zadeh
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  5. Nhut-Huan Phan
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  6. Enrico Corniani
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  7. Hoai-Nam Tran
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  8. Van Hao Duong
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  9. Gholam Hossein Roshani
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Enrico Corniani.

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Roshani, M., Phan, G.T.T., Nazemi, E. et al. 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. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 136, 176 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01169-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01169-6

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