Volume fraction measurement of oil-water two-phase flow using a coaxial conductivity sensor

The accurate measurement of volume fraction of oil-water two-phase flow on line is important in the oil field.This paper presents a new coaxial conductivity sensor for measuring the volume fraction of oil-water two-phase flow.This structure may get the more uniform sensitivity field and the vertical installation may get the more axial symmetry of the flow field,which improve the measurement accuracy.In order to minimize the influence of the edge effect,guard electrodes were designed.An anti-edge effect degree Ae was defined to optimize the length of the guard electrode.Different models of effective conductivity of two materials were used in calculating the oil volume fraction of oil-water two-phase flow.The experimental results indicate that Maxwell model is the best model under the condition of oil volume fraction less than 50%and the mean value of the calculation results using Maxwell model and Bruggeman model possesses higher accuracy in the range of oil volume fraction(50%-70%).The experimental results show that the sensor obtains similar measurement performance in both vertical upward and downward flow conditions.The accuracy of the sensor system is 2%when the oil volume fraction less than 50%,and the accuracy is about 5%when the oil volume fraction between 50%and 70%.

Recent developments of nanomaterials-based conductive type methane sensors

Methane is an explosive gas in coalmines and needs to be monitored by methane sensors.Conductivetype methane sensors are small,simple and stable,and they are very promising for mining safety or home safety applications.They can even be employed in mining Internet of things if the power consumption can be lowered down to few milliwatts.Many researches of nanomaterialsbased conductive-type methane sensors have been reported recently.This review intends to present a comprehensive and critical summary on the recent progresses in the nanomaterials-based conductive-type methane sensors field.Many excellent methane-sensitive nanomaterials will be present,such as SnO2,ZnO,TiO2,WO3,carbon nanotubes,graphene,rare earth metal-based perovskite oxides and their hybrids.Particular attention is given to the synthetic methods of the nanomaterials,sensing mechanisms of the nanomaterials and the relationship between the sensing performance and the structures and components of the nanomaterials.Finally,the future trends and perspectives of nanomaterials-based conductive-type methane sensors are proposed.

Transient thermal response of micro-thermal conductivity detector (μTCD) for the identification of gas mixtures:An ultra-fast and low power method

Micro-thermal conductivity detector(μTCD)gas sensors work by detecting changes in the thermal conductivity of the surrounding medium and are used as detectors in many applications such as gas chromatography systems.Conventional TCDs use steady-state resistance(i.e.,temperature)measurements of a micro-heater.In this work,we developed a new measurement method and hardware configuration based on the processing of the transient response of a low thermal mass TCD to an electric current step.The method was implemented for a 100-μm-long and 1-μm-thick micro-fabricated bridge that consisted of doped polysilicon conductive film passivated with a 200-nm silicon nitride layer.Transient resistance variations of theμTCD in response to a square current pulse were studied in multiple mixtures of dilute gases in nitrogen.Simulations and experimental results are presented and compared for the time resolved and steady-state regime of the sensor response.Thermal analysis and simulation show that the sensor response is exponential in the transient state,that the time constant of this exponential variation was a linear function of the thermal conductivity of the gas ambient,and that the sensor was able to quantify the mixture composition.The level of detection in nitrogen was estimated to be from 25 ppm for helium to 178 ppm for carbon dioxide.With this novel approach,the sensor requires approximately 3.6 nJ for a single measurement and needs only 300μs of sampling time.This is less than the energy and time required for steady-state DC measurements.