2014 NSFMW
2014 NSFMW
1 INTRODUCTION
This paper describes the principle of quantifying the gas fraction during multi-
phase flow using the Magnetic Resonance (MR) based multiphase flow meter and
provides experimental results obtained during the testing phase of the meter.
The industrialized version of the magnetic resonance based multiphase flow meter
has been introduced in 2013 [1]. At that time, the technical concepts for
determining the water liquid ratio as well as liquid flow rates were explained. In
addition, details of the mechanical construction and first test results were
provided.
This paper starts with a brief summary of the liquid measuring principle and
continues with a description of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
methodology which is used to quantify gas phase fraction and velocity. This
explanation is supported with illustrative measurement data. As such, this paper
can be understood as an extension of the paper on the Magnetic Resonance (MR)
based multiphase flowmeter presented last year[1]. Meanwhile, extensive tests
have been carried out with the industrialized version of the MR meter in various
test laboratories, covering a wide range of flow rates, GVF’s, WLR’s, salinities,
viscosities and pressures. The results of these tests will be presented in this
paper, illustrating the performance of the latest version of the MR-based
multiphase flow meter.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
As a consequence of aligning the orientation of hydrogen protons, a net
magnetization is built up by the protons. The development of a net
magnetization is a function of time (see Figure 1) and depends on the specific
molecular interactions that the hydrogen protons encounter in oil, water and gas.
The characteristic time scale for magnetization build-up is referred to as
longitudinal, or T1, relaxation time. Due to stronger inter- and intra-molecular
interactions, hydrogen atoms associated with oil typically magnetize much faster
than those bound to water (T1, oil < T1, water). As illustrated in Figure 1, this
difference can be exploited to determine the water-liquid ratio of the mixture
flowing in the pipe. At a given flow velocity, the exposure time of hydrogen
protons to the external magnetic field depends on the length of the magnets
producing the external magnetic field. By using two or more pre-magnetization
lengths, a contrast can be created between the NMR signals originating from oil
and water because the hydrogen associated with oil requires less time (and
hence, shorter magnet lengths) for building up the maximum signal than the
hydrogen in water. Since the magnetization behavior in the meter of both oil and
water is known, the water liquid ratio can now be determined in both completely
and partially liquid filled pipes by comparing signal intensities acquired with
different pre-magnetization lengths. Referring to Figure 1, note that the ratio of
the signals acquired at different pre-magnetization lengths, as indicated by the
grey dots in Figure 1, is directly related to the water liquid ratio, while the signal
strength acquired at maximum pre-magnetization length is directly related to the
liquid hold-up.
Figure 1 - Build-up of magnetization and, hence, signal levels, for oil and water
achieved with maximum pre-magnetization length (left-hand figure) and
minimum pre-magnetization length (right-hand figure). The magnetization build-
up as shown above holds for a flow velocity, v, of 2 m/s and longitudinal
relaxation times, T1, of 0.15 s and 2 s for oil and water, respectively. In practice a
mixture of oil and water is present leading e.g. to the measured signals as
indicated by the grey dots.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
coil. The excited protons, in turn, are generating a signal (echo) that is detected
by the same RF coil and subsequently modulated, amplified and processed in the
electronics section of the meter.
During the initial RF pulse, only the fluid volume (and associated protons) that is
present in the RF coil at the particular time stamp of the first RF pulse is excited.
Due to flow, this excited volume is leaving the coil. Subsequent RF pulses,
rapidly applied with milli-second time separation, can only manipulate the
magnetization of the protons associated with the fraction of the fluid volume that
still remains in the RF coil at each particular pulse. This fraction of fluid volume is
permanently decreasing and consequently, the amplitude of the detected echo is
also linearly decreasing. This concept is illustrated in Figure 2. The higher the
flow velocity, the faster the excited volume is leaving the coil, and the steeper is
the envelope curve of successively acquired NMR signals.
v = Lc/tS=0
The velocity that is obtained from the convective signal decay is a composition of
the oil and water velocities. The initial signal amplitude corresponds
predominantly to oil if a sufficiently short pre-magnetization length is selected
that does not allow the hydrogen atoms associated with water to create a
significant magnetization. Consequently, the velocity that is being measured for
this pre-magnetization configuration predominantly reflects the oil velocity. This,
in combination with the measured water liquid ratio, makes it possible to
determine both the oil and water velocities independently.
The reader is referred to [1], [2], [3] and [4] for a more detailed description of
the Magnetic Resonance principle and its application in multiphase flow
measurement.
The MR flow meter is capable of directly measuring the gas hold-up as well as the
gas phase velocity. The underlying principles will be explained in this section.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
Assume a simplified two phase flow situation comprising a gas-liquid mixture.
For this system holds that the sum of the liquid and gas hold-ups equals unity:
L G 1 (1)
where L and G are the hold-ups for liquid and gas, respectively.
Furthermore, we know that the measured signal, Smeas., is a superposition of the
signals generated by the liquid and gas fractions, respectively:
where S100%L and S100%G are the signal amplitudes corresponding to 100% liquid
and gas filling, respectively. These particular-signals amplitudes are determined
as part of the calibration procedure for each meter.
S100% L. S meas.
G (3)
S100% L S100%G
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
selected slice can be measured. It should be noted that the flow is in the x-
direction.
Figure 4 - The lower left-hand figure shows the composition profile for the
multiphase stratified wavy flow as shown in the upper figure. In the right-hand
lower figure the corresponding time averaged velocity profile is depicted. (Gas:
5.8 (a)m3/h, Oil: 1.6 m3/h, Water: 6.4m3/h, WLR: 80%, GVF: 43%).
The magnetic resonance flow meter has been tested at four different flow loops
(see Figure 5). With the exception of the single phase (water) testing at the
XCaliber loop in Dordrecht, NL, all flow loops have been visited a number of times
with the various generations of the MR flow meter:
Figure 5 - Picture of the various flow test loops. Upper left-hand figure: SwRI, San
Antonio, USA. Lower left-hand figure: XCaliber, Dordrecht, NL. Upper right-hand
figure: Donau, Shell Rijswijk, NL. Lower right-hand figure: DNV-GL, Groningen,
NL.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
Water Liquid Ratio (WLR), and gas versus liquid flow rates that have been tested
are included in Figures 6 and 7.
The MR multiphase flowmeter has been tested over a wide range of conditions at
four well known multiphase test facilities. Figure 6 summarizes the GVF versus
WLR test points. This diagram shows that the entire GVF and WLR range has been
covered systematically. The increased concentration of test points at higher WLR
is related to our particular interest of utilizing the MR flowmeter for these
conditions.
Figure 6 - Overview of all Gas Volume Fraction (GVF) versus Water Liquid Ratio
(WLR) test points for the tests at various multiphase flow loops.
Figure 7 shows all test points in the flow map; liquid flow rates versus actual gas
volume flow rates. The flow rates for both gas and liquid have been varied across
a wide range, covering about two decades of each parameter.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
Figure 7 - Overview of the liquid flow rate versus gas flow rate test points for all
the tests. Actual flow rates have been used as reference.
Tests at four different pressures have been carried out in the range of 3 to 83
bar(g). The temperature at the various test loops varied from 25°C to 40°C. The
salinity varied from 0 g/l (fresh water) up to 100 g/l NaCl concentration. The
viscosity of the oil in the multiphase test facilities varied from 4.1cSt (1 cSt on
single phase water) up to 43 cSt. An overview of this range is shown in figure 8.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
6 OVERVIEW OF THE TEST RESULTS
Prior to the measurements at DNV-GL, tests at the Donau flow loop of Shell have
been carried out. During these tests at the Donau, the calibration parameters of
the MR flowmeter were determined that will be used by the data evaluation
algorithm. These parameters have been kept constant for the processing and
interpretation of data acquired during the tests at the other flow facilities.
Figure 9 shows the test results that have been obtained at the DNV-GL loop in the
flow rate map. In the left-hand figure the results are shown for the tests acquired
at 12 bar(g) line pressure. The right-hand figures shows the 30 bar(g) test data.
The green squares indicate the reference flow rates. The red circles correspond to
the measured values (in accordance with [6]).
A number of points draw attention. At first glance, the 30 bar data looks
significantly better than the 12 bar data. For the gas measurements this is indeed
true. However, closer analysis shows that this is not true for the liquid data.
For the gas phase, it is clear that a lower pressure leads to a lower gas density.
This results in a weaker signal generated by the gas, and thus to a lower signal-
to-noise ratio (SNR). Detailed analysis of the test data demonstrates that the
errors obtained in the gas measurement results can be attributed to the relatively
high level of noise of the measured gas signal. To address this finding, the
sensitivity of the latest version of the MR multiphase flowmeter has been
improved by a factor of three. The result of this improvement is a signal-to-noise
level which is comparable to the signal quality of 30 bar as presented in the right-
hand figure. This hardware improvement should lead to improved results for
lower gas pressures.
Result prior to
SNR improvement
Figure 9 - Flow map with an overview of the test results. The green squares
indicate the reference flow rates. The red circles indicate the measured flow rates.
The left-hand figure shows the results obtained with 12 bar(g) line pressure. The
right-hand figure corresponds to 30 bar(g) line pressure.
The liquid data around the value of 20 m3/h Figure 9 show a larger deviation
between measured and reference values. Further analysis of the measured data,
and comparison with video recordings of flow behaviour acquired simultaneously
through sight glasses during the flow tests revealed that this larger deviation is
related to a mismatch between data acquisition frequency and slug frequency. For
these particular flow conditions, the video recording illustrated that the slug
frequency is noticeably smaller than the typical measurement interval.
A longer measuring time should lead to better averaging of flow rate and fluid
fractions, and consequently to better results. This relation is confirmed by the
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
measurements at 30 bar line pressure with identical actual liquid and gas flow
rates. Video recordings demonstrate a more regular slug pattern at 30 bar line
pressure, to which the selected data acquisition pattern was better suited.
Figure 10 shows the test results for the 30 bar test conditions in the composition
map. The left-hand figure shows the error in the liquid measurements; the right-
hand figure the gas results. If the meter’s performance would have been inferior
for a specific GVF or WLR range, this shortcoming would have become visible in
these diagrams. However, both for the liquid and the gas measurements, there
seems to be no specific range in which the error deviates significantly.
For all the test points, the error associated with the gas flow measurement is less
than 10% of the MV, even though two of the measured points were outside the
operating range for this version of the MR flowmeter. For the error associated with
the liquid flow measurement, all test points are within 5%of the MV, noticeably
both inside and outside the specified operating range. An exception is the liquid
measurement at a GVF of 99%. The uncertainty in the quantification of the 1%
liquid fraction flowing in the gas stream is 14.5% MV. When related to total
volume flow this reading translates to an error of 0.145%, which is still good.
Figure 10 - Overview of the test results in the composition map. The left figure
shows the liquid flow measurement error in %MV. The right figure shows the gas
flow measurement error in %MV.
The results of the liquid measurements acquired at Shell’s Donau flow loop are
shown in figure 11. Due to the fact that this installation uses compressed air for
the gas phase, no gas NMR signal is generated. Because of the absence of
hydrogen in compressed air. As a consequence, the gas velocity cannot be
measured. For this reason the ‘measured’ gas flow was set equal to the reference
gas flow during data interpretation.
The measured liquid flow rates correspond well with the reference values. Higher
GVF’s appear to be associated with larger measurement uncertainties. At the
same time, video recordings at these flow conditions show that the flow pattern is
very unstable. As discussed in the previous section, this shortcoming will be
addressed by selecting longer data acquisition periods, which are expected to lead
to an improved precision of the MR flowmeter for these conditions.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
Figure 11 - Overview of the test results obtained at Shell’s Donau flow loop
plotted on a flow map. The green squares indicate the reference flow rates. The
red circles indicate the measured flow rates. Test pressure was 3 Bar(g). As
explained in the text above, the ‘measured’ gas flow rate is set equal to the
reference gas flow rate.
Compared to the results as presented last year, the accuracy of liquid and gas
measurements has been significantly improved with the latest generation of the
MR flowmeter. This is illustrated by the cumulative error plot as shown in Figure
12.
GVF=99%
Figure 12 - Cumulative error plot for liquid and gas measurement. Left-hand
figure: results obtained at SwRI in 2013 at 83 bar(g). Right-hand figure: result
obtained with the improved industrialized MR multiphase flowmeter obtained in
June 2014 at 30 bar(g).
For liquid flow, the uncertainty has been reduced by a factor of 3 to 6 compared
to earlier results reported. For gas flow, the improvement is significantly higher as
increasing the meter’s sensitivity for detecting small signals, as well as further
improving the automated data evaluation algorithm, resulted in a reduction of
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
measurement error by approximately a factor of 8. We repeat that the same
evaluation algorithm, including constant calibration parameters, has been used
for the entire application range (flow, GVF, WLR, salinity, temperature and
pressure).
This paper provides an explanation of the physical concept for the measurement
of gas fraction and gas velocity using magnetic resonance technology. Utilizing
the concept of magnetic resonance imaging, it has – for the first time – be
possible to directly quantify the flow of a free gas phase during multi-phase flow
at industrial conditions.
The improved and industrialized design of the MR multiphase flowmeter has been
tested at four different flow loops over a wide range of conditions of gas and
liquid flow rates, GVF, WLR, pressure, salinity and viscosity. This paper provides
an overview of the results of these tests.
Progress in both hardware development and the data interpretation algorithm has
resulted in a significant improvement in measurement accuracy both for liquid
flow (factor of 3 to 6 improvement) and for gas flow (factor of 8) characterization
compared to the previous prototype version. The high accuracy of the WLR
determination has been proven again by additional measurements. The
experiments have demonstrated that a variation in water salinity neither affects
the accuracy of WLR, nor the accuracy of the liquid and gas volume flow rate.
The tests have shown that the MR flowmeter’s accuracy of gas and liquid
measurement is not dependent on volume flow rate, below a GVF of 0.95. It was
realized that the data acquisition period of the flow meter needs to be carefully
adjusted to the slug frequency in order to acquire representative data.
Line pressure starts to affect the accuracy of gas flow measurements once the
pressure is below approximately 10 bar. Analysis of acquired data showed that
this uncertainty is related to a relatively high noise level. Further hardware
improvement has resulted in a reduction of the data noise level by more than a
factor of 3. This leads to a proportionally better performance of the gas
measurements at lower pressures.
8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors of this paper like to express their appreciation to the entire
development team for the tremendous amount of work that has been done
throughout the last year. Further acknowledgement is made to the various
operators of the flow facilities at which the meter has been tested.
9 REFERENCES
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014
[3] Jankees Hogendoorn and Matthias Appel, Magnetic Resonance for the
Future; A New Methodology to Measure Multiphase Flow, 4th International
EMBT Conference, Hannover, 20.-21. March, 2013.
[5] A.F. van den Heuvel, D.van Putten and B. Bergsma, Are Multiphase Flow
Meters ready for calibration?, Milestones in Metrology, Venice, Italy, 2012.
[6] Handbook of Multiphase Flow Metering, Norwegian Society for Oil and Gas
Measurement, revision 2, March, 2005.
32nd International North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop 21-24 October 2014