The wire-mesh sensor as a two-phase flow meter

A novel gas and liquid flow rate measurement method is proposed for use in vertical upward and downward gas–liquid pipe flows. This method is based on the analysis of the time history of area-averaged void fraction that is measured using a conductivity wire-mesh sensor (WMS). WMS measurements were collected in vertical upward and downward air–water flows in a pipe with an internal diameter of 32.5 mm at nearly atmospheric pressure. The relative frequencies and the power spectral density of area-averaged void fraction were calculated and used as representative properties. Independent features, extracted from these properties using Principal Component Analysis and Independent Component Analysis, were used as inputs to artificial neural networks, which were trained to give the gas and liquid flow rates as outputs. The present method was shown to be accurate for all four encountered flow regimes and for a wide range of flow conditions. Besides providing accurate predictions for steady flows, the method was also tested successfully in three flows with transient liquid flow rates. The method was augmented by the use of the cross-correlation function of area-averaged void fraction determined from the output of a dual WMS unit as an additional representative property, which was found to improve the accuracy of flow rate prediction.