Characterization of flow regimes in two phase flow using wavelet analysis

In this study, the horizontal flow regime maps using experimental data has been developed and validated with the existing literature for air/Newtonian and air/non-Newtonian fluid flow. A new method based on wavelet transform has been proposed to quantify the flow regimes in two phase flow. The experiments were performed in a horizontal flow loop of 4 meter long closed cycle system. The air flow range is about 85 L/min to 3300 L/min, and the water flow range is 250 L/min to 850 L/min. There are four pressure transducers used in the flow loop. Two of them has been installed in the air flow line to measure inlet air pressure and other two of them are in the horizontal test section. The experimental setup mostly gives slug flow for two-phase flow, it also gives bubble flow and wavy flow at other operating ranges. The slug frequency increase with increased liquid flow rate for both air/water and air/0.1% Xanthan gum solution. However, it decreased with increased air flow rate. Pressure signal decomposition has been conducted for bubble and slug flow using wavelet packet transformation. This signal analysis has successfully identified the signal for different flow patterns and provided different entropy value for various flow pattern pressure signal. 1-D wavelet packet decomposition can be potential methods to analyze multiphase flow experimental signals and find different characteristics and recognizing different flow patterns.