Monitoring Solid Phase in Oil-Water-Sand Multiphase Flow in Impact Parts Based on Acoustic Emission Sensor Technology

Abstract

Oil-water-sand multiphase flow is widely used in oil production industry. The effect of real-time measurement of the solid phase in oil-water-sand multiphase flow parameters is significant in the monitoring of sand production. In order to improve the existing limitations in solid particle detection of a liquid-solid system, an acoustic emission signals amplify device for liquid-solid flow has been developed and its evaluation test is conducted indoor. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis method is applied based on the theory of multiphase flow macroscopic continuum. Research is conducted on the distribution of solid phase in oil-water-sand multiphase flows in impact parts. The characteristics of the acoustic emission signals of sand with different sizes and concentrations are also extracted under laboratory conditions. A primary measuring instrument based on acoustic emission is proposed and designed to amplify vibration caused by sand impact. Therefore, the acoustic emisson sensor is much easier to receive solid signal. CFD analysis results show that the impact parts amplified the solid signal caused by the acoustic emission in multiphase flows. The indoor experiment results showed that the sand particle size and concentration have a good correlation with the relative power spectrum amplitude of the signal. The device system can effectively detect sand with the content of more than 0.3 wt.‰ and with the size of fewer than 325 meshes. Accordingly, this method would be helpful to apply the acoustic emission technology in enhancing the solid detection for the multiphase system.