Intrusive effect of wire mesh tomography on gas-liquid flow measurement

Abstract

To investigate the accuracy of wire mesh tomography (WMT) for gas-liquid flow measurement, the experimental study focused on its intrusive feature has been carried out. The WMT principle is based on the dependency upon electrical conductivity on the local void fraction. The applied wire mesh sensor (WMS) consists of two measuring planes. Each plane has 8x32 crossing points with spatial resolution of2.22x3.03 mm2 and wire diameter of 0.125 mm. The disturbance level is estimated from the deviation of flow properties between each measuring plane of WMT and also from the alternative image processing for low gas intensity range. The results show the dependency of disturbance level on the void fraction shape. Furthermore, the contribution of deceleration and deformation on the flow disturbance related to the flow condition are presented. In addition, the capability of gas velocity evaluation method is confirmed and the intrusive effect becomes only one important parameter for gas velocity measurement. © 2003 Taylor & Francis Group, Ltd.