See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/222011846

A capacitive sensor system for the analysis of two-phase flows of oil and
conductive water

Article  in  Sensors and Actuators A Physical · September 2010

DOI: 10.1016/j.sna.2010.08.018

CITATIONS READS

113 794

4 authors:

Marco Demori Vittorio Ferrari

Università degli Studi di Brescia Università degli Studi di Brescia
28 PUBLICATIONS   395 CITATIONS    235 PUBLICATIONS   4,251 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Domenico Strazza Pietro Poesio

20 PUBLICATIONS   982 CITATIONS   
Università degli Studi di Brescia
93 PUBLICATIONS   2,018 CITATIONS   
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Cold flow analysis View project

Multiphase flow of complex fluids in pipes and capillaries View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Domenico Strazza on 24 December 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sna

A capacitive sensor system for the analysis of two-phase flows

of oil and conductive water
Marco Demori a,∗ , Vittorio Ferrari a , Domenico Strazza b , Pietro Poesio b
a
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università degli studi di Brescia, Via Branze 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy
b
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Industriale, Università degli studi di Brescia, Via Branze 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A sensor system for the study of oil–water flow in pipes is proposed. The purpose is to estimate the area
Received 29 April 2010 fraction occupied by each fluid in a given section of the pipe, taking advantage of the difference in dielectric
Received in revised form 14 July 2010 permittivity between the fluids. The estimation is done by capacitance measurements between electrodes
Accepted 15 August 2010
flush-mounted on the external surface of a nonconductive section of the pipe. A key contribution of the
Available online 20 August 2010
present work is to propose a solution to the problem of capacitive sensing in presence of conductive
water which introduces parasitic coupling to stray elements outside the measurement section of the
Keywords:
pipe. To this purpose it is proposed a novel sensor configuration that employs guard electrodes, coupled
Capacitive sensor
Capacitance probe
to a tailored electronic interface to drive the guard electrodes and amplify the measurement signal at
Two-phase flow 2 MHz. The sensor system has been designed, manufactured and tested in an experimental plant where
Oil–water flow flows of oil–tap water have been generated. The results obtained from the developed sensor system
for different fluid fractions have been compared with those obtained by the Quick Closing Valve (QCV)
technique adopted as a reference. Differences between the two methods below 3% have been found in
the estimations of the normalized oil-area fraction.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction to estimate the area fraction occupied by oil, Ho = Ao /(Ao + Aw ), with

Two-phase flows are characterized by the simultaneous flow
along a pipe of a combination of two phases such as gas–liquid,
liquid–solid and liquid–liquid, that remain separate. The study of
this kind of flows is of actual relevance not only for their scien-
tific and fundamental interest, but also because they are commonly
found in many industrial applications, such as in oil industry or
chemical plants. Different combinations of flow rates of the two
phases give rise to different flow patterns, i.e. geometrical config-
urations of the phases in the pipe. In this work oil–water flows are
considered, which are typical for oil pipelines. In the paper, the
attention in mainly focused on the flow pattern known as core-
annular flow, where oil flows in the center of the pipe and water
flows as an annulus around it. The annular flow is extremely inter-
esting since it gives a significant advantage in terms of reduction
of pressure drops [1]. In addition, oil-in-water dispersed and inter-
mittent flows are also considered.
An important parameter in the study of two-phase liquid–liquid
flows is the hold-up, which represents the normalized area fraction
occupied by each phase. In this paper, we present a sensing system
∗ Corresponding author at: University of Brescia, Department of Information Engi-
neering, Via Branze 38, Brescia, Italy.
E-mail address: marco.demori@ing.unibs.it (M. Demori).
Ao and Aw being the oil and water areas respectively, as shown in
Fig. 1a.
To provide real-time estimation of hold-up, a sensor system
based on a capacitive technique is proposed. This technique is
based on the different electric characteristics of the two phases
that, being located in various configurations and amounts inside the
pipe, generate different dielectric permittivity distributions. These
variations can be measured by a pair of electrodes placed on the
external surface of a nonconductive section of the pipe to form a
capacitor, as shown in Fig. 1b. The main advantage of the capaci-
tive technique is to be nonintrusive and, hence, it does not disturb
the flow. Capacitive sensors have been developed with good results
in gas–liquid and liquid–liquid flows to obtain hold-up measure-
ments or tomographic reconstruction [2–7], and also in gas–solid
systems [8].
The present sensor system has been specifically developed to
measure the oil hold-up in an oil–water flow under the typical con-
dition encountered in a real plant where water with finite electrical
conductivity (or brine) can be used. In this condition, the pipe sec-
tion where the sensor electrodes are placed cannot be considered
electrically isolated from the plant, and some difficulties arise in the
application of the capacitive technique [3,9–11]. As a first effect,
a conductive fluid such as tap water inside the pipe generates a
screening action in the measurement section, which reduces the
sensitivity to oil fraction. Moreover, the presence of a conductive

0924-4247/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sna.2010.08.018
 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179 173

Fig. 1. Cross-section of the pipe with oil–water flow (a); capacitive technique
schematization with definitions of material properties (b).

fluid produces conductive paths that couple the measurement sec-

tion between the electrodes with the outer portions of the pipe and
the rest of the plant in turn. Overall, these issues affect the capac-
itance measurement and pose significant challenges that call for
innovative design solutions. A tailored approach was initially pro-
posed in [12] and has thereof led to the extended analyses, design
and experimental results that are reported in the present paper.
In Section 2, the application of the capacitance technique in
presence of a conductive fluid is discussed. A model of the electric
behavior of the material system between electrodes, comprising Fig. 2. Representation of annular flow in a pipe with circular cross-section (a); sim-
fluids and pipe, is proposed to understand how the oil hold-up plified geometry based on squared cross-section and equivalent circuit elements of
information can be extracted. Subsequently, the effect on the mea- the different materials (b).
surement due to external couplings is considered and a solution to
mitigate such a perturbing effect is proposed based on the use of
pipe with an electrodes arc length of 90◦ has been replaced by a
guard electrodes.
squared cross-section. In this configuration the whole area occu-
Section 3 provides the description of the developed sensor sys-
pied by the fluids is conveniently assumed as a square and the oil
tem composed of a measurement head, an electronic transduction
area is assumed as an inner centered square. As shown in Fig. 2b
circuit, and a PC-based data acquisition system. In particular, the
the side length ds of the square total section is set to the value
electronic transduction circuit that drives the measurement head
of the linear length covered by one electrode, whose arc length is
electrodes is illustrated. In addition, the principal dimensioning
of 90◦ in the circular section of Fig. 2a. Since the mean distance
parameters are reported.
between electrodes is almost equal to the perimeter portion cov-
Section 4 presents the experimental results obtained from the
ered by one electrode, the squared configuration can be assumed
developed sensor system installed on a laboratory plant where oil
as a good approximation of the circular cross-section. In the sim-
and tap water are circulated. The results for the hold-up measured
plified configuration, the area fractions of the fluids can be easily
for core-annular flow are compared with those obtained from a
linked to the geometrical parameters ds and lo that are the side of
reference technique. In addition, the application of the developed
the fluids and oil squares respectively.
probe to different flow patterns is reported and commented.
The cross-section is divided into homogeneous regions electri-
Section 5 summarizes the results and conclusions.
cally connected either in series or in parallel. The model allows to
derive the electrical behavior of the system (including fluids and
2. Capacitive technique in presence of a conductive fluid pipe walls) between the electrodes, which can be described as a
network of capacitances and resistances, whose values are related
2.1. Measurement section impedance to the electric characteristics of each material and to the geometric
dimensions of the corresponding regions [10,13]. These, in turn, can
In the core-annular flow regime the oil can be considered as a be expressed as a function of the oil hold-up parameter Ho defined
disc at the center of the pipe section surrounded by a concentric in Section 1.
annulus of water, as shown in Fig. 2a. If we analyze the system Denoting with ZS the overall impedance between the electrodes
of materials between the electrodes along the pipe, because of the per unit axial length, the expression of ZS (ω) as a function of the
presence of a conductive fluid, the electrical behavior of this system angular frequency ω = 2f is given by:
has to be considered as a generic impedance. To better under-
stand the characteristics of this impedance and to put it in relation 1 Rws Rwp
Z S (ω) = 2 +2 + .
with the hold-up information, we propose and analyze the sim- jωCp 1 + jωCws Rws 2 + jω2Cwp Rwp + jωCo Rwp
plified geometry of Fig. 2b, where the circular cross-section of the (1)
174 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179

With reference to Fig. 2b, the definitions of the circuit elements

expressed as a function of their respective dimensions and material
properties are the following:
ds ds 1 (ds − lo )/2
Cp =ε0 εpipe ; Cws =ε0 εw ; Rws = ;
dp (ds − lo )/2 w ds
(2a)

(ds − lo )/2 1 lo
Cwp = ε0 εw ; Rwp = ; Co = ε0 εoil .
lo w (ds − lo )/2
(2b)

The geometric dimensions of the oil and water regions can be

directly related to the hold-up Ho by the following expression:
Ao l2 
Ho = = o2 ⇒ lo = Ho ds2 . (3)
Ao + Aw ds
Inserting Eqs. (2a), (2b) and (3) into Eq. (1) we obtain the following
expression of the impedance ZS as function of the oil fraction Ho :

2 1 − Ho
Z S (ω) = +
jωCp w + jωε0 εw

Ho
+   . (4)
(1 − Ho )(w + jωε0 εw ) + Ho jωε0 εoil

Eq. (4) shows that the impedance ZS can be expressed as the sum Fig. 3. Computed phase (a) and magnitude (b) of the impedance per unit axial length
of three terms. The first term does not depend on Ho because it is ZS as a function of the oil fraction Ho for different values of frequency.
only related to the capacitance of the pipe wall. The second term
shows a dependence on Ho only in the magnitude, and the third
As mentioned and shown in Figs. 3a and b and 4, the frequency
term is a function of Ho both in the magnitude and in the phase.
directly influences the sensitivity. This is due to the conductive
As a consequence, it is difficult to immediately determine the
water that, for certain flow regimes such as the investigated core-
effect of Ho on ZS from the analytic expression of Eq. (4). However,
annular flow, completely separates the pipe internal wall from the
by inserting into Eq. (4) the material parameters and dimensions for
oil, thereby acting as a shield for the oil inner region. For frequen-
each region, the impedance ZS as a function of the oil fraction Ho can
cies in the order of 1 MHz and higher, the quantities  w and ωε0 εw
be calculated for different frequencies. This has been done by using
in Eq. (4) become of the same order of magnitude. In this way
the following values, which account for the physical dimensions of
the dielectric behavior of water becomes comparable to the con-
our pipe and electrical characteristics of pipe and fluids: dp = 2 mm,
ductive behavior, resulting in an increased sensitivity. The analysis
ds = 19.64 mm, εp = 3.4, εw = 80, and  w = 0.03 S/m.
shows that to detect hold-up values across a suitably wide range it
The results for the magnitude and phase of ZS as a function of Ho
is necessary to operate with frequencies in the order of 1 MHz or
for different frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 5 MHz are shown
higher.
in Fig. 3a and b, respectively. As it can be seen, at 100 kHz there
The above results of the analysis on the measurement sec-
are no substantial variations of ZS as a function of Ho except for
tion impedance confirm what found in previous works where
Ho very close to 1. Therefore, at this frequency and below, it is not
comparatively high frequencies were used to extract the hold-
possible to obtain the adequate sensitivity to measure Ho across a
up information from the impedance between electrodes. In these
wide range. Increasing the frequency, the sensitivity increases as
works the adoption of AC capacitance meters, RF capacitance
can be seen from the results obtained for 2 and 5 MHz. Analyzing
meters or systems based on phase shift measurements were
the phase trend of Fig. 3a, it can be observed that for the most part of
described [3,10,14–18].
the values assumed by Ho the phase remains near −90◦ . This means
that the behavior of ZS can be mainly considered as dominated by
capacitive effects in spite of the presence of a conductive fluid. The
considered pipe is made by a purely dielectric material (Plexiglas)
with a finite thickness and the pipe walls act as two capacitances
in series to the actual impedance of the fluids. The value of these
capacitances is expressed by the first term of Eq. (4) and, from the
results of Fig. 3a and b, this value is dominant for most part of the
values assumed by Ho .
Further insight in the behavior of ZS can be obtained by analyz-
ing the trend of the admittance per unit axial length YS = (1/ZS ) that
is plotted in Fig. 4 where the real and imaginary components are
separately shown. As expected, the dominant part of YS is the imag-
inary component because of the prevailing capacitive behavior of
ZS . The imaginary part of YS is also monotonically sensitive to Ho .
Therefore, from a measurement viewpoint, it is expected that the
Ho information can be conveniently extracted from the imaginary Fig. 4. Computed real and imaginary parts of the admittance per unit axial length
part of YS or from a quantity directly linked to it. YS = (1/ZS ) for different values of frequency.
 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179
Fig. 5. Simplified schematization of the coupling between the measurement section
and external elements along the pipe by conductive water paths, and corresponding
leakage currents.
2.2. External couplings
The capacitance technique applied to a conductive fluid creates
problems not only related to the phenomena that take place in the
cross-section, but also due to effects that occur along the pipe. The
conductive fluid creates conductive paths that may couple the mea-
surement section with the up-stream and down-stream portions of
the pipe and the surroundings.
If, for instance, we consider an insulating pipe filled by water, as
shown in Fig. 5, the cylinder of fluid inside the pipe can be seen as
two pieces of conductive wire originating from the measurement
section and extending outwards. Such conductive paths are cou-
pled with the surroundings in two different ways that we define
as external couplings. The first possible coupling mechanism is by
direct contact with the metallic parts of the hydraulic set-up, such
as pumps. The second possible mechanism is the capacitive cou-
pling between the conductive water and metallic parts that can
be present nearby, such as mounting fixtures and supports. Exter-
nal couplings can cause two effects due to signal leakage from the
measurement section, and to interference injection into the mea-
surement section, respectively. In the practical cases, the latter
effect can be minimized by a proper system layout and an adequate
filtering and it will be therefore neglected in the following. The for-
mer effect can significantly perturb the measurement process and
therefore it will be considered in more detail.
With reference to Fig. 5, if we measure the impedance between
the electrodes by imposing a potential difference and measuring
the correspondent current, it is evident that the measurement is
influenced by the external couplings. These external couplings rep-
resent additional paths from which currents ILL and ILR can leak
out from the measurement section in the axial direction along the
pipe. For a given system configuration, this could be considered as
a systematic effect that could be virtually corrected for. However,
when oil is also present in the pipe together with water, the sec-
tion of the conductive path varies with Ho , which is the quantity we
want to measure, and therefore the estimation of the external cou-
plings necessary to correct the measurement is not straightforward.
From these considerations, it is clear that the external couplings
prevent the accurate measurement of the impedance between the
electrodes and the reliable estimation of Ho .
In order to minimize the perturbing action due to external cou-
plings, a properly designed configuration of the sensor system is
here proposed. The configuration is based on the introduction of
two guard sections placed along the pipe before and after the mea-
surement section and having the same electrode opening angle of
the measurement section, as shown in Fig. 6a.
The system can be modeled by denoting with Z the impedance
between the electrodes of the measurement section, and with ZGL
and ZGR the impedances between the guarding electrodes at the
left and right sides of the measurement section respectively. In this
175
simplified model the lumped impedances Z, ZGL and ZGR are divided
into two equal parts in order to introduce the conductive path along
the pipe represented by the impedances ZR and ZL . The impedances
ZLL and ZLR represent the terminal elements where all the external
couplings are assumed to be concentrated.
From this model it is evident that to minimize the effect of exter-
nal couplings it is necessary to limit the leakage currents ILL and
ILR flowing through ZL and ZR . This can be obtained by forcing the
nodes R and L in the model of Fig. 6b at the same potential of node
X. In this way, the measurement section becomes isolated from the
remaining pipe and therefore it is not influenced by the impedances
ZLL and ZLR due to the external couplings. In practice, however,
nodes R, L and X are not directly accessible and, as such, perfectly
equal potentials cannot be achieved.
To approach as much as possible this target condition it is neces-
sary to use the same polarization for the corresponding electrodes
in the measurement and the guard sections. This is achieved by
placing the three electrodes represented on the high side of Fig. 6b
at the potential VP and the corresponding opposite electrodes at
zero potential. In addition, it is necessary that ZGL and ZGR are
made low enough to allow the current passing through them to
be much higher than the current through ZLL and ZLR . To reduce
ZGL and ZGR two ways can be used: (1) to increase the length LG of
the guard electrodes, which provides a correspondent reduction of
ZGL and ZGR ; (2) to increase the working frequency since ZGL and
ZGR are expected to have the same dominantly capacitive behavior
described for ZS in Section 2.1.
3. System description
The sensor can be divided into three principal parts as shown
in the block diagram of Fig. 7: the measurement head made by
the electrodes along the pipe; the interface and signal-conditioning
electronic circuit; and the measurement data acquisition and visu-
alization system.
The measurement head has electrodes that are directly placed
facing each other on the external surface of a nonconductive sec-
tion of the pipe. A Plexiglas tube with inner and outer diameters
of 21 and 25 mm respectively has been used for the pipe. Spe-
cial care has been devoted to the dimensioning of the electrodes,
in particular to counteract the effects of the conductive fluid, by
using electromagnetic Finite-Element Method (FEM) simulations
and preliminary experimental tests. For the measurement section,
an electrode axial length LM = 10 cm and an arc length  e = 90◦ have
been chosen in order to obtain the required spatial resolution and
to ensure a good sensitivity to the phenomena at the center of the
pipe. For the guard sections, an electrode axial length LG = 40 cm
and an arc length  e = 90◦ have been chosen.
The transduction electronic circuit has been developed to mea-
sure at a given probing frequency fp = ωp /2 the imaginary part of
the admittance Y = 1/Z of the measurement section, which can be
directly linked to Ho as described in Section 2. The imaginary part of
Y at fp can be seen as due to an effective capacitance C = Im(Y)/ωp .
In presence of nonconductive fluids only, the overall behavior of
the system of materials between the electrodes would be purely
capacitive and the effective capacitance C would be exactly the
capacitance seen between them. The present system could then be
compared with capacitance probes developed by other authors, yet
offering the added capability to operate also in presence of fluids
with nonzero conductivity.
With reference to Fig. 6b, the three high-side electrodes in the
sensor head are connected together to the terminal P. The two
low-side guard electrodes are connected together to terminal GND,
while the low-side measurement electrode is connected to ter-
minal M. The circuit excites terminal P with a sinusoidal voltage
176 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179

Fig. 6. Electrodes of the measurement and guard sections (a); axial section of the pipe with electrode configuration and the lumped impedance simplified model to account
for the external coupling and the guarding action (b).

Vp (t) = Ap cos(ωp t), while terminal GND is grounded. The terminal 656, which allows the use of a RF large enough to have ωp CF RF  1
M is connected to the virtual ground of a transimpedance amplifier, (CF = 50 pF, RF = 10 M). Under this condition the amplifier transfer
which senses the current collected by the low-side measurement function is given by:
electrode while holding it at the same null potential of the neigh-

boring guard electrodes. Vo  (1/jωp CF ) Y
=− =− . (5)
The transimpedance amplifier is composed of an inverting- Vp  Z jωp CF
configuration operational amplifier where the feedback impedance ωp CF RF 1

is made by the parallel combination of the resistance RF and the

capacitance CF . This configuration allows to eliminate the effects The output voltage signal Vo (t) then results:
of stray capacitances of the connecting cables that can be much
higher than the effective capacitance C that has to be measured [19]. Ap Im(Y ) Ap Re(Y ) 
Vo (t) = − cos(ωp t) + cos(ωp t + ). (6)
In particular we used a JFET-input operational amplifier, TI OPA CF ωp CF ωp 2

Fig. 7. Block diagram of the complete sensor system where the connections to the measurement and guard sections of the sensor head, represented by terminal pairs (P, M)
and (P, GND) respectively, are schematized.
 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179
Eq. (6) shows that, with respect to the excitation signal Vp (t), the
output voltage Vo (t) can be divided into an in-phase part propor-
tional to the imaginary part of Y, and a quadrature part proportional
to the real part of Y. To perform phase-sensitive demodulation,
the signal Vo is multiplied by Vp by an analog multiplier circuit
based on the AD835, and the resulting output is low-pass filtered
by a 2nd-order filter with a cut-off frequency of 20 Hz. In this
way, a narrow-band filtering effect around fp is obtained, which
rejects wideband noise and the electromagnetic interference pos-
sibly picked-up by the sensor electrodes. The filter output signal is
level-shifted by the adjustable DC voltage Vref and then amplified
by a gain G to adapt the signal level for the following acquisition.
The overall output Vmeas of the transduction circuit is a DC volt-
age given by:
 
A2p /1V Im(Y (ωp )) A2p /1V
Vmeas = G − + Vref = −G C + GVref , (7)
2CF ωp 2CF
where the term 1 V accounts for the dimensional gain introduced by
the analog multiplier. The role of the adjustable offset voltage Vref is
to adapt the circuit to the most common case where the variations
of C due to the oil fraction variations are much smaller than the
absolute value of C. For this reason, it is necessary to have high sen-
sitivity while at the same time it is important to center the dynamics
of Vmeas around a given absolute value of C. For instance, it can be
easily possible to adjust at zero the signal Vmeas for a fixed condi-
tion, e.g. pipe filled with water, and then evaluate the Ho variations
from such preset value.
The variation of the output Vmeas with respect to C defines the
system sensitivity SC given by:
2
Ap /1V
∂Vmeas
SC = = −G . (8)
∂C 2CF
Assuming a positive gain G, SC is negative. This conveniently deter-
mines that an increase of Ho produces an increase in Vmeas .
The circuit has been designed by choosing a probing frequency
fp = 2 MHz which is adequately high according to what discussed in
Section 2, Ap = 1 V, and G = 200. These values result in a sensitivity
|SC | = 2 V/pF which is high enough to estimate Ho even in the worst
case when conductive water acts as a shield.
The DC voltage Vmeas is then fed to the data acquisition and
visualization system which is based on a 16-bit A/D data acquisi-
tion board, National Instruments PCI-6259, connected to a personal
computer. A dedicated program written in LabVIEW allows the con-
tinuous visualization over time of the measured values in order to
estimate C, the associated fluid fractions and their fluctuations.
4. Experimental results
The developed sensor system has been mounted on an experi-
mental set-up that simulates an oil pipeline. The experimental loop
consists of a 9 m Plexiglas pipe composed of 6 pieces of 1.5 m each.
The two fluids are pumped and jointly injected into the pipe by
an appropriate injection device. Water is supplied by a centrifu-
gal pump connected to a frequency inverter that provides control
of the injected flow rate. Oil is pumped by a screw-type oil pump
and its flow rate is controlled by a mechanical gear reducer con-
nected to the pump. The two flow rates are separately measured
by two turbine flow-meters. At the end of the pipe, oil and water
are ejected into a storing vessel where they separate by gravity and
further re-circulated into the plant [1]. The measurement head of
the sensor system is placed 5 m down-stream the injection device
and a Quick Closing Valve device is placed at the edges of the tract
of pipe which includes the sensor.
Preliminary tests have been conducted to characterize the out-
put signal Vmeas in terms of noise level and base-line drift in order to
177
Fig. 8. Output voltage and RCD for a sequence of flows with three different values
of oil hold-up HO . The inset pictures shows a section of the correspondent flow are
taken by a lateral position along the transparent pipe.
establish the minimum signal variation that can be related to the oil
fraction variation. These parameters in turn quantify the short-term
and medium-term measurement resolution, respectively. In the
condition of pipe completely filled with water, noise levels of about
1.5 mVrms , and 2.5 mVrms have been measured over an integration
time of 10 s in no flow and steady flow conditions, respectively.
The slight increase in the noise level in the flow condition is due to
the increased electromagnetic noise generated from the electrical
pumps actuation. On a long term operation, a base-line drift in the
signal Vmeas lower than 15 mV per hour has been measured for the
water-filled pipe in either no flow and steady flow conditions.
Thereafter, the system has been experimentally tested in the
core-annular flow configuration. An example of the typical mea-
sured output signal is illustrated in Fig. 8, where the voltage Vmeas
is plotted as a function of time during a sequence of three subse-
quent flow conditions corresponding to three different increasing
oil fractions. As expected, the system detects the different oil quan-
tities by providing different mean values of Vmeas . In addition, the
system is also sensitive to the flow fluctuations as can it be seen by
the oscillations around the mean value, which are well beyond the
resolution threshold set by background noise level.
Fig. 8 reports on the right axis the Relative Capacitance Differ-
ence RCD [3]:
C − Coil Vmeas − Vwater
RCD = =1− . (9)
Cwater − Coil Voil − Vwater
The RCD is a dimensionless quantity that represents the relative
variations of the effective capacitance C with respect to the end-
point conditions obtained with the pipe filled of either oil (Coil , Voil )
or water (Cwater , Vwater ).
Fig. 9a shows the relationship between RCD and Ho derived by
FEM simulations obtained for the annular flow under the hypoth-
esis of a perfectly symmetrical fluid configuration with a centered
disc oil core. The curve obtained by interpolating the simulation
results has been thereafter used as the calibration curve, which
relates the measured data of RCD and the values of Ho to be esti-
mated.
The hold-up values estimated by the sensor have been com-
pared with the values obtained by the Quick Closing Valve (QCV)
technique used as a reference [14–20]. To this purpose, a series of
annular flows with different oil hold-up values has been generated
and for each of them the RCD has been measured with our system.
At the same time, the oil fraction has been determined by the QCV
technique.
The RCD for the different flows has been obtained from Eq. (9) by
averaging the corresponding Vmeas signal over an integration time
of 10 s; in this way the real-time information on the oil hold-up Ho
in the measurement section is turned into a time-averaged value.
It can be reasonably assumed that the measured time-averaged Ho
178 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179
Fig. 9. (a) Calibration curve for annular flow regime: Relative Capacitance Difference
versus oil fraction Ho ; (b) comparison between Ho predictions by the sensor system
(applying the calibration curve) and the QCV estimation technique.
can be compared with the spatial average of Ho obtained by QCV
technique.
The comparison results are shown in Fig. 9b where for each
measured value of RCD the oil hold-up is estimated using the cal-
ibration curve (triangles) and compared with the corresponding
value obtained by the QCV technique (circles). It can be observed
that the difference between the two values is below 3% for all the
tested hold-up values. The QCV technique is based on a volumet-
ric measurement therefore it is not influenced by the presence of
a conductive fluid nor affected by the flow configuration. For this
reason, the obtained agreement demonstrates good performances
of the developed system, and, in particular, evidences that the hold-
up estimation is almost independent from the eccentricity of the oil
core, that can be observed in the picture of Fig. 8, even if the calibra-
tion curve is obtained under the centered configuration hypothesis.
Besides the core-annular flow, two other flow patterns of oil-in-
water can be of practical interest, namely the dispersed flow and
the oil slug, or intermittent, flow [1]. The developed system has
been used for a preliminary investigation of both such flows.
Oil-in-water dispersed flow consists of small drops of oil sus-
pended in a continuous water flow. Fluid dynamic analyses of this
kind of flow pattern demonstrate that it can occur also for in-situ
oil fraction lower than 20% (Ho = 0.2). Since the amount of oil is so
small, a low sensitivity of C to the oil fraction is expected as a con-
sequence of the conductive water shielding effect, as anticipated in
Section 2.1.
Fig. 10 shows the output signal Vmeas as a function of time mea-
sured for two different dispersed flows. The values of Vmeas , much
lower than those obtained for the core-annular flow confirm the
expected small variations of the measured capacitance C. Despite
the reduced voltage variations, it is evident from the comparison
between the data plot and the pictures reported in the insets of
Fig. 10 that the system can distinguish the different amount of oil
in the flows denoted with 1 and 2. Moreover, it can be observed
that the dimensions of oil drops influence the Vmeas oscillation, with
flow 2 consistently producing larger fluctuations compared to flow
1 where the drops are smaller.
Fig. 10. Output voltage Vmeas measured for a sequence of two different dispersed
flows and the corresponding pictures in the insets. The flow 1 has a very small
amount of oil, while oil quantity is increased in flow 2 which results in an increased
average dimension of the oil drops that is consistently detected by the sensor system.
Fig. 11. Output voltage Vmeas measured for two different oil slug flows and the cor-
responding pictures in the insets. In the first part, flow 1, the oil drops are separated
by a long tract of water-filled pipe, while in the second part, flow 2, a sequence of
close drops are generated. The sensor system consistently detects and distinguishes
both variants of the slug flow.
The slug flow is an intermittent flow composed by a sequence
of elongated drops of oil alternated by tracts where water entirely
fills the pipe section [21]. In this flow regime, the oil presence is
concentrated in the drop regions where the oil position in the cross-
section can be considered similar to the case of the annular flow.
Fig. 10 shows the output signal Vmeas as a function of time mea-
sured for slug flows represented by the pictures in the insets. In
the first part of this test, denoted as flow 1, the oil drops are sep-
arated by a water-filled section much longer than the drop length.
As expected, Vmeas remains close to zero, which represents the ref-
erence condition of water-filled pipe, until the drop reaches the
measurement section and the Vmeas signal shows a spike with the
amplitude related to the drop length and the oil fraction consider-
ing the drop cross-section. In the second part of the test of Fig. 11,
denoted as flow 2, oil drop sections and water-filled sections have
a comparable length and Vmeas consistently shows a sequence of
spikes.
This test demonstrates the capability of the developed system to
extract time-domain information on slug flow [7]. By the analysis of
the signal Vmeas the mean drop frequency can be obtained, more-
over by adding multiple measurement sections the drop velocity
can be estimated.
5. Conclusions
A sensor system, based on a capacitive technique, for oil fraction
estimation in a two-phase oil–water flow has been proposed. The
effect of the presence of a conductive fluid in the application of the
capacitive technique has been investigated. In this case, the mate-
rial system between electrodes has to be considered as a generic
impedance. A way to extract the oil-fraction information from this
 M. Demori et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 163 (2010) 172–179
impedance has been proposed. In particular, it has been shown that
it is necessary to chose a measurement frequency high enough to
obtain the required sensitivity. Moreover, the detrimental effects
on the measurement due to the couplings between the measure-
ment section and the outer portions of the pipe have been studied.
These external couplings are due to the conductive path inside
the pipe represented by the conductive fluid. The analysis demon-
strates that the effect of the external couplings can be mitigated
by the introduction of guard electrodes of proper length before
and after the measurement section and by implementing a tailored
electronic interface to drive the guard electrodes and amplify the
measurement signal.
Based on this previous analyses, an optimal design and dimen-
sioning of the measurement head and electronic transduction
circuit has been proposed. The system has been realized and exper-
imentally tested comparing the oil fraction estimation with those
obtained by a reference technique. The good results obtained
demonstrate the ability of the system to address the operation
also in presence of a conductive fluid such as tap water, thereby
improving its industrial applicability compared with previous pro-
posed systems. In addition, the presented analysis of the external
couplings in presence of a conductive fluid can be extended to the
design of capacitance tomography sensor systems.
References
[1] B. Grassi, D. Strazza, P. Poesio, Experimental validation of theoretical models
in two-phase high-viscosity-ratio liquid–liquid flows in horizontal and slightly
inclined pipes, Int. J. Multiphase Flow 34 (2008) 950–965.
[2] N. Reinecke, D. Mewes, Recent developments and industrial/research applica-
tions of capacitance tomography, Meas. Sci. Technol. 7 (1996) 233–246.
[3] J.J.M. Geraets, J.C. Borst, A capacitance sensor for two-phase void fraction mea-
surement and flow pattern identification, Int. J. Multiphase Flow 14 (1988)
305–320.
[4] C. Strizzolo, J. Converti, Capacitance Sensors for Measurement of Phase Volume
Fraction in Two-Phase Pipelines, IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas. 42 (1993) 726–729.
[5] W.Q. Yang, L. Peng, Image reconstruction algorithms for electrical capacitance
tomography, Meas. Sci. Technol. 14 (2003) R1–R13.
[6] A. Martínez Olmosù, M.A. Carvajal, D.P. Morales, A. García, A.J. Palma, Devel-
opment of an Electrical Capacitance Tomography system using four rotating
electrodes, Sens. Actuators A 148 (2008) 366–375.
[7] E. dos Reis, L.J. Goldstein, A non-intrusive probe for bubble profile and velocity
measurement in horizontal slug flows, Flow Meas. Instrum. 16 (2005) 229–239.
[8] T. Dyakowski, R.B. Edwards, C.G. Xie, R.A. Williams, Application of capacitance
tomography to gas–solid flows, Chem. Eng. Sci. 52 (1997) 2099–2110.
[9] A.J. Jaworski, G.T. Bolton, The design of an electrical capacitance tomography
sensor for use with media of high dielectric permittivity, Meas. Sci. Technol. 11
(2000) 743–757.
[10] A. Jaworek, A. Krupa, Gas/liquid ratio measurements by rf resonance capaci-
tance sensor, Sens. Actuators A 113 (2004) 133–139.
[11] H. Canière, C. T’Joen, A. Willockx, M. De Paepe, Capacitance signal analysis of
horizontal two-phase flow in a small diameter tube, Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci. 32
(2008) 892–904.
[12] M. Demori, V. Ferrari, D. Strazza, A sensor system for oil-fraction estimation in
a two-phase oil–water flow, Proc. Chem. 1 (2009) 1247–1250.
[13] S.M. Huang, R.G. Green, A.B. Plaskowski, M.S. Beck, Conductivity effects on
capacitance measurements of two-component fluids using the charge transfer
method, J. Phys. E: Sci. Instrum. 21 (1988) 539–548.
View publication stats
179
[14] K.J. Elkow, K.S. Rezkallah, Void fraction measurements in gas–liquid flows
under 1−g and ␮−g conditions using capacitance sensors, Int. J. Multiphase
Flow 23 (1997) 815–829.
[15] J.K. Keska, M.D. Smith, B.E. Williams, Comparison study of a cluster of four
dynamic flow pattern discrimination techniques for multi-phase flow, Flow
Meas. Instrum. 10 (1999) 65–77.
[16] W.H. Ahmed, B.I. Ismail, Innovative techniques for two-phase flow measure-
ments, Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering 1 (2008) 1–13.
[17] M.S.A. Abouelwafa, E.J.M. Kendall, The use of capacitance sensors for phase
percentage determination in multiphase pipelines, IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.
29 (1980) 24–27.
[18] A. Jaworek, A. Krupa, Phase-shift detection for capacitance sensor measuring
void fraction in two-phase flow, Sens. Actuators A 160 (2010) 78–86.
[19] S.M. Huang, A.L. Stott, R.G. Green, M.S. Beck, Electronic transducers for indus-
trial measurement of low capacitance value, J. Phys. E: Sci. Instrum. 21 (1988)
242–250.
[20] G. Oddie, H. Shi, L.J. Durlofsky, K. Aziz, B. Pfeffer, J.A. Holmes, Experimental study
of two and three phase flows in large diameter inclined pipes, Int. J. Multiphase
Flow 29 (2003) 527–558.
[21] P. Poesio, Experimental determination of pressure drop and statistical proper-
ties of oil–water intermittent flow through horizontal pipe, Exp. Therm. Fluid
Sci. 32 (2008) 516–522.
Biographies
Marco Demori was born in Bovolone (Verona) Italy, on October 24th 1979. In 2008
he received the Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering at the University of Brescia.
From 2008 he is a PhD student in “Electronic Instrumentation” at the University of
Brescia, Department of Information Engineering. His main research deals with the
development of electronic systems for the study of multiphase flows in pipes and
microfluidic channels; this activity is performed in collaboration with the Thermo-
dynamics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of the
same university.
Vittorio Ferrari was born in Milan, Italy, in 1962. In 1988, he obtained the Lau-
rea degree cum laude in Physics at the University of Milan. In 1993 he received
the Research Doctorate degree in Electronic Instrumentation at the University of
Brescia. He has been an assistant professor and an associate professor at the Fac-
ulty of Engineering of the University of Brescia until 2001 and 2006, respectively.
Since 2006 he has been a full professor of Electronics. His research activity is in
the field of sensors and the related signal-conditioning electronics. Particular top-
ics of interest are acoustic-wave piezoelectric sensors, microresonant sensors and
MEMS, energy harvesting for autonomous sensors, oscillators for resonant sensors
and frequency-output interface circuits. He is involved in national and international
research programmes, and in projects in cooperation with industries.
Domenico Strazza graduated in May 2006 in Mechanical Engineering at University
of Brescia. In November 2006, he was appointed as a PhD student at University
of Brescia in the course “Technologies and Energetic Systems for the Mechanical
Industry”. From November 2006 to October 2009, he worked on liquid–liquid two-
phase flows; in particular he focused his attention on high viscous oil–water core-
annular flow. In April 2010 Domenico successfully defended his PhD thesis titled
“Two-phase and three-phase core-annular flow in horizontal and slightly inclined
pipes”. He is currently doing research on two-phase and three-phase flows. He is
also working with other researchers on capacitance measurements in multiphase
flows and on microfluidic devices.
Pietro Poesio holds a MSc (Università di Brescia, Italy, 2000) and a PhD (Delft Uni-
versity of Technology, The Netherlands, 2004), both awarded with honors. Since
October 2004, he works as assistant professor at the Università di Brescia (Italy)
where he is in charge of the laboratory for Thermal and Fluid Sciences; his fields
of interest cover fluid mechanics, microfluidics, and multiphase flows. Pietro has
authored more than 60 publications on international journals and national and
internationals congresses.