• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.6 s.237
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• pp.671-686
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• 2005

The transient nature and complex geometries of two-phase gas-liquid flows cause fundamental difficulties when measuring flow velocity using an electromagnetic flowmeter. Recently, a current-sensing flowmeter was introduced to obtain measurements with high temporal resolution (Ahn et al.). In this study, current-sensing flowmeter theory was applied to measure the fast velocity transients in slug flows. The velocity fields of axisymmetric gas-liquid slug flow in a vertical pipe were obtained using Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method, and the virtual potential distributions for the electrodes of finite size were also computed using the finite volume method for simulating slug flow. The output signal prediction for slug flow was carried out from the velocity and virtual potential (or weight function) fields. The flowmeter was numerically calibrated to obtain the cross-sectional liquid mean velocity at an electrode plane from the predicted output signal. Two calibration parameters are proposed for this procedure: a flow pattern coefficient and a localization parameter. The flow pattern coefficient was defined by the ratio of the liquid resistance between the electrodes for two-phase flow with respect to that for single-phase flow, and the localization parameter was introduced to avoid errors in the flowmeter readings caused by liquid acceleration or deceleration around the electrodes. These parameters were also calculated from the computed velocity and virtual potential fields. The results can be used to obtain the liquid mean velocity from the slug flow signal measured by a current-sensing flowmeter.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.714-725
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• 2003

The theory of the current-type electromagnetic flowmeter for a high temporal resolution was developed for two-phase flow measurements. To predict the output of the current-type flowmeter, the three-dimensional virtual potential distribution C and the newly introduced flow pattern coefficient f were derived and computed. The output of flowmeter depends on the liquid conductivity (sensitive to temperature) and flow configurations of the two-phase flow with the sinusoidal excitation over 100 Hz. The flow pattern coefficient was specially devised to separate the dependency on the flow configuration of the two-phase flow from that on the liquid conductivity which can be expressed with the calibration of single-phase flow. Using the finite difference method, the three-dimensional virtual potential distributions were computed for the electrode of finite size. By taking derivative of the virtual potential, the weight functions were evaluated and compared with existing analytic series solution for the point-electrode. There was a reasonable correspondence between the present and existing results. In addition, the flow pattern coefficients were evaluated for annular flows with various film thicknesses, and compared with the experimental results by the impedance spectroscopy. The numerical results agreed well with the experimental data.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1951-1956
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• 2004

The transient nature and complex flow geometries of two-phase gas-liquid flows cause fundamental difficulties when measuring flow velocity using an electromagnetic flowmeter. Recently, a current-sensing flowmeter was introduced to obtain measurements with high temporal resolution (Ahn et $al.^{(1)}$). In this study, current-sensing flowmeter theory was applied to measure the fast velocity transients in slug flows. To do this, the velocity fields of axisymmetric gas-liquid slug flow in a vertical pipe were obtained using Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method and the virtual potential distributions for the electrodes of finite size were also computed using the finite volume method for the simulated slug flow. The output signal prediction for slug flow was carried out from the velocity and virtual potential (or weight function) fields. The flowmeter was numerically calibrated to obtain the cross-sectional liquid mean velocity at an electrode plane from the predicted output signal. Two calibration parameters are required for this procedure: a flow pattern coefficient and a localization parameter. The flow pattern coefficient was defined by the ratio of the liquid resistance between the electrodes for two-phase flow with respect to that for single-phase flow, and the localization parameter was introduced to avoid errors in the flowmeter readings caused by liquid acceleration or deceleration around the electrodes. These parameters were also calculated from the computed velocity and virtual potential fields. The results can be used to obtain the liquid mean velocity from the slug flow signal measured by a current-sensing flowmeter.