Error Analysis of Liquid Holdup Measurement in Gas-Liquid Annular Flow Through Circular Pipes Using High-Speed Camera Method

Accurate measurement of gas-liquid phase fraction is essential for the proper modelling of the pressure drop, heat transfer coefficient, mass transfer rate and interfacial area in two-phase flows. In this paper, taking the issue of optical distortion into account, an analytical model was proposed to estimate and correct the liquid holdup in gas-liquid annular flow through a circular pipe using high-speed camera method. The error in the liquid holdup measurement generated from different refractive indices among transparent circular pipe, liquid film and air core was firstly theoretically analyzed based on the geometric optics. Experimental tests were then carried out to identify the difference as well as to validate the proposed model. Results indicated that the prediction of the liquid holdup has a good performance with the experimental data (i.e., mean relative error is 4.1%) and the measured liquid holdup is larger than the real one. It was found that the measured liquid holdup is larger than the real one. Generally, when the real liquid holdup gets smaller, the discrepancy between the measured liquid holdup by image and the real liquid holdup becomes more significant. Thus, after measuring the liquid holdup from the images, the value of the measured liquid holdup must be corrected by the present model in order to obtain the real liquid holdup.