A study on the relationship between upstream and downstream conditions in swirling two-phase flow

Inline fluid separation is a concept, which is used in the oil and gas industry. Inline fluid separators typically have a static design and hence changing inlet conditions lead to less efficient phase separation. For introducing flow control into such a device, additional information is needed about the relationship of upstream and downstream conditions. This paper introduces a study on this relationship for gas/liquid two-phase flow. The downstream gas core development was analyzed for horizontal device installation in dependence of the inlet gas and liquid flow rates. A wire-mesh sensor was used for determining two-phase flow parameters upstream and a high-speed video camera to obtain core parameters downstream the swirling device. For higher accuracy of the calculated void fraction, a novel method for wire-mesh sensor data analysis has been implemented. Experimental results have shown that void fraction data of the wire-mesh sensor can be used to predict the downstream behavior for a majority of the investigated cases. Additionally, the upstream flow pattern has an impact on the stability of the gas core downstream which was determined by means of experimental data analysis. •Wire-mesh sensor can estimate downstream core diameter in an inline fluid separation process.•Recordings from high speed camera are used to quantify swirl flow behavior.•New wire-mesh sensor method for achieving higher accuracy in void fraction calculation.