Oil–water two-phase flow exists widely in the process of petroleum industry. The water holdup is an important parameter but difficult to measure. In this paper, we develop an area-alterable liquid electrode capacitance sensor for water holdup measurement in oil–water two-phase flow. The capacitance sensor has a relatively high measurement sensitivity and a good linearity in the full range of the water holdup, from 0% to 100%. Meanwhile, a firing technology of insulating layer is presented to guarantee the characteristics of the capacitance sensor with high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, and non-stickiness. The static performance of the capacitance sensor is validated theoretically and experimentally. Vertical upward oil–water two-phase flow experiments indicate that the developed capacitance sensor has good performance for water holdup measurement with average relative error of 10% in the full range of the water holdup. Based on the output signal of the sensor, the information of flow structure can be also estimated in different flow patterns.

中文翻译：

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用于油水两相流中持水率测量的面积可变液体电极电容传感器

油水两相流在石油工业生产过程中广泛存在。持水率是一个重要参数，但难以测量。在本文中，我们开发了一种面积可变的液体电极电容传感器，用于油水两相流中的持水率测量。电容式传感器具有较高的测量灵敏度和良好的线性度，在整个持水率范围内，从 0% 到 100%。同时，提出了一种绝缘层烧成工艺，保证了电容传感器耐高温、耐腐蚀、不粘性的特性。电容传感器的静态性能在理论上和实验上都得到了验证。垂直向上油水两相流实验表明，所开发的电容传感器具有良好的持水率测量性能，在整个持水率范围内平均相对误差为10%。基于传感器的输出信号，还可以估计不同流型下的流结构信息。