Investigation of the effect of the electrode distance on the impedance void meter performance in the two-phase flow measurement

Experimental study on the effect of electrode distance on the performance of impedance void meter is presented. The study includes multiple approaches. In the numerical simulation approach, based on the mathematical similarity between electric and temperature fields, the electric fields with different electrode distances are simulated using ANSYS Fluent to generate temperature fields. In the experimental study, an adiabatic air-water experiment is performed to compare two impedance meters with different electrode distances. The test conditions cover the flow regimes from bubbly flow to annular flow. Gamma densitometer and multi-single sensor conductivity probe are utilized for the void fraction comparison. The effect of the electrode distance on the flow regime identification using the artificial neural network is investigated, the signals of the different impedance meters are applied as the inputs for the artificial neural network. It is found that impedance meter with a properly large electrode distance has better performance in void fraction measurement, especially at high superficial velocity.