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Determination of Volume Fractions in a Two-Phase Flows From Sound Speed

Measurement

Conference Paper · August 2012

DOI: 10.1115/NCAD2012-1381

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Anirban Chaudhuri1
Postdoctoral Research Associate
e-mail: anirban@lanl.gov
Curtis F. Osterhoudt2
Scientist
e-mail: cfo@lanl.gov
Dipen N. Sinha
Scientist and Laboratory Fellow
e-mail: sinha@lanl.gov
Sensors and Electrochemical Devices (MPA-11),
Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Los Alamos, NM 87545
An Algorithm for Determining
Volume Fractions in Two-Phase
Liquid Flows by Measuring
Sound Speed
This paper presents a method of determining the volume fractions of two liquid compo-
nents in a two-phase flow by measuring the speed of sound through the composite fluid
and the instantaneous temperature. Two separate algorithms are developed, based on
earlier modeling work by Urick (Urick, 1947, “A Sound Velocity Method for Determining
the Compressibility of Finely Divided Substances,” J. Appl. Phys., 18(11), pp. 983–987)
and Kuster and Toksöz (Kuster and Toksöz, 1974, “Velocity and Attenuation of Seismic
Waves in Two-Phase Media: Part 1. Theoretical Formulations,” Geophysics, 39(5), pp.
587–606). The main difference between these two models is the representation of the
composite density as a function of the individual densities; the former uses a linear rule-
of-mixtures approach, while the latter uses a nonlinear fractional formulation. Both
approaches lead to a quadratic equation, the root of which yields the volume fraction (/)
of one component, subject to the condition 0  /  1. We present results of a study with
mixtures of crude oil and process water, and a comparison of our results with a Coriolis
meter. The liquid densities and sound speeds are calibrated at various temperatures for
each fluid component, and the coefficients are used in the final algorithm. Numerical
studies of sensitivity of the calculated volume fraction to temperature changes are also
presented. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4007265]

1 Introduction constant by means of a capacitance probe [4,13]. However, capac-

itance probes are subject to coating by paraffins that render them
Accurate measurement of the composition of oil-water mixtures
inaccurate within a short period of time; these type of sensors also
and emulsions within the process environment is one of the chal-
have problems when the medium becomes electrically conductive
lenging problems in the oil and gas extraction and petrochemical
(e.g., water continuous). Another method involves the laboratory
industries. It is important for reasons that include monitoring of
analysis of samples drawn from the pipelines [14], but this is labor
the inventory and quality of petroleum products, ensuring the
intensive, requires a substantial amount of time to complete, and
desired operating regime of the process plant (which may depend
does not allow the continuous monitoring of the liquid–liquid
on spatial and temporal distribution of phases in the mixed state)
system.
or identifying the environmental hazards such as discharge of oily
Ultrasonic techniques have also been applied to measure com-
water into the environment [1–3]. As the oil industry has begun to
position in two-phase liquid systems. For example, the ultrasonic
develop smaller and more marginal reservoirs, the demand for
measurement technique has been widely used for characterizing
compact and more cost-effective solutions for production and
heterogeneous mixtures in industrial processes. Its main advan-
monitoring of these wells has also increased. As an example, a
tages lie in the ability to (i) rapidly and noninvasively analyze
detailed discussion of the needs for identification of the oil-water
fluid mixtures, (ii) penetrate typically opaque highly concentrated
phase content in the primary separation systems, common within
mixtures, and (iii) not pose risks to human health (unlike X-ray or
the oil and gas extraction industry, is given in Ref. [4].
c-ray densitometry). There have been different studies investigat-
There are a number of techniques available to measure the
ing the use of ultrasonic time-of-flight to make composition meas-
phase content of oil-water mixtures. These vary from relatively
urements. A time average model, which assumed that measuring
simple off-line methods of sampling and establishing the
the travel time of sound through the dispersion and comparing it
volumetric content by gravity or centrifugal separation to more
with the travel times through pure phases enables one to calculate
sophisticated on-line and in situ methods relying on the interac-
the volume fraction of each phase in the dispersion, was used by
tion of particular “sensing fields” (such as ultrasonic [5,6], optical
Bonnet and Tavlarides [15] to estimate of the phase fraction of the
[7], electrical [8,9], microwave [10], X-ray [11], c radiation [12],
dispersed phase with reasonable accuracy. Correction factors were
etc.) with matter, which allow the user to deduce the phase content
later introduced [16,17] to improve the accuracy of the calculation
indirectly. Multiphase meters should preferably have nonintrusive
by considering refraction and reflection phenomena of sound on
sensors for several reasons, including the elimination of pressure
the droplet–water interface; this was verified at low volume
drop over the instrument, minimizing the impact on the flow, pos-
fractions (1%) of the dispersed phase [6]. There have also been
sibility of a clamp-on device, and the absence of detector corro-
studies to determine the concentration of solids in a three-phase
sion. One of the most common methods of measuring oil-water
slurry reactor by measuring the velocity of ultrasound in slurries
ratios in commercial use is the measurement of the dielectric
[18]. Regression based methods have been used in the food and
chemical industries too; Krause et al. [19] recently presented a
1
Corresponding author. multivariate regression method for simultaneous detection of
2
Present address: University of Alaska, Anchorage, AK. sugar and ethanol concentrations in aqueous solutions via
Contributed by Fluids Engineering Division of ASME for publication in the JOUR-
NAL OF FLUIDS ENGINEERING. Manuscript received October 4, 2011; final manuscript
temperature-dependent ultrasonic velocity. The inherent compro-
received July 19, 2012; published online September 24, 2012. Assoc. Editor: Mark mise in the choice of the frequency of the ultrasound between
R. Duignan. maximizing spatial resolution and ensuring adequate beam

Journal of Fluids Engineering Copyright V

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 penetration, along with limitations of ultrasonic wave propagation and
as a nonintrusive diagnostic technique, have also been discussed
in literature [20,21]. q q ð1  /Þ þ qo ð2 þ /Þ ð1  /Þ þ rð2 þ /Þ
¼ w ¼ (5)
In this paper, an algorithm to calculate the volume fractions by qw qw ð1 þ 2/Þ þ 2qo ð1  /Þ ð1 þ 2/Þ þ 2rð1  /Þ
measuring sound speed in a two-phase liquid flow is developed.
The composite density is represented by two different formula- respectively, where r ¼ qo =qw .
tions, both of which have been previously shown [5] to represent In both models, the fluid compressibility is obtained from a lin-
properties of mixtures very closely. Note that the current exercise ear rule-of-mixtures approach for homogeneous liquids as follows
is in reverse compared to earlier studies; while others have [5,25,27]:
focused on calculating the density of a binary fluid mixture using
different (linear and nonlinear) mixing laws, our efforts were to j ¼ /jo þ ð1  /Þjw (6)
find the volume fractions while assuming that the mixing laws are
valid. Although the examples presented here pertain to oil-water where / is the oil volume fraction ð0  /  1Þ
mixtures, the derivation is applicable to any binary liquid mixture From Eq. (1), we can write
where the individual components have distinct sound speeds
within the temperature range of interest. Nondimensional parame- 1 1
ters are defined to simplify the analyses and allow better interpre- c2o ¼ ; c2w ¼ (7)
jo qo jw qw
tation of experimental data. The algorithm was applied to detect
fluid mixture ratios at two separate oil fields with different oil vol-
ume fractions and API gravities. The results have been compared Using the above expressions, we get
with readings from industry standard metering techniques.
jo jo qo qw c2w 1 o
¼  ¼  ¼ (8)
jw jw qw qo c2o r rw
2 Modeling Two-Phase Flows
The two models used for calculating individual volume fraction where o ¼ c2 =c2o and w ¼ c2 =c2w . Note that from these definitions,
(referred to as the “oil-cut” in oil-water mixtures) / in this paper r, o, and w are all positive quantities. Rewriting Eq. (6) and apply-
are those proposed by Urick [22] and Kuster–Toksöz [23]. Both ing Eq. (8),
models assume that (i) the wavelength of the acoustic waves is
much longer than the characteristic size of the dispersed particles/ j jo  o
phase, and (ii) multiple scattering effects of the sound field are ¼ / þ ð1  /Þ ¼ 1  / 1  (9)
jw jw rw
negligible. The calculation of the velocity of sound c in such a
homogeneous, nonscattering mixture of two fluids is given by By multiplying Eqs. (9) and (4), we obtain, for the Urick model
Ref. [24]
jq h  o i
pffiffiffiffiffiffi ¼ 1/ 1  ½1  /ð1  rÞ (10)
c ¼ 1= qj (1) jw qw rw

where q is the density of the composite medium and j is the adia- Similarly, by multiplying Eqs. (9) and (5), we obtain, for the
batic compressibility. Equation 1 also relates the sound speed, Kuster–Toksöz model
density, and compressibility of the two individual liquid compo-
h   
nents, oil and water. Throughout the rest of this paper, the oil and jq o i ð1  /Þ þ rð2 þ /Þ
water phases are represented with the subscripts o and w respec- ¼ 1/ 1  (11)
tively. For the tests analyzed in this paper, the crude oil and pro- jw qw rw ð1 þ 2/Þ þ 2rð1  /Þ
cess water mixtures are homogenized and the droplet sizes are
much smaller than the wavelengths (1 mm) used to interrogate The left-hand side is equal to 1=w for both Eqs. (10) and (11), and
the composite fluid; hence, both assumptions stated above are ap- they each can now be simplified to a quadratic equation of the
plicable [25]. form
The difference between these two models is the computation of
the composite fluid density q as a function of the two component A/2 þ B/ þ C ¼ 0 (12)
densities qo and qw [26]. The Urick model applies a simple linear
combination based on the definition of volumetric oil-cut3 as where the coefficients A, B, and C are listed in Table 1 in terms of
follows: the nondimensional parameters r, o, and w. This nondimensional
formulation also allows us to choose arbitrary units for c and r, as
q ¼ /qo þ ð1  /Þqw (2) long as they are the same for the two phases. Solution of the quad-
ratic equation yields two roots of the form
while the Kuster–Toksöz model uses
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
qw  q q  qo B 6 B2  4AC
¼/ w (3) /¼ (13)
qw þ 2q qw þ 2qo 2A

and the root corresponding to 0  /  1 is used.

Note that both models satisfy the conditions q ¼ qo for / ¼ 1 and
q ¼ qw for / ¼ 0. By simple algebraic manipulations, Eq. (2) and
Eq. (3) can be modified to
q q Table 1 Coefficients of quadratic equation
¼ / o þ ð1  /Þ ¼ 1  /ð1  rÞ (4)
qw qw
Coefficient Urick model Kuster–Toksöz model

3
From the definition of oil-cut, / ¼ Vo =ðVo þ Vw Þ, where it is assumed that the A ðo  rwÞð1  rÞ ðo  rwÞð1  rÞ
two components, oil and water in this case, are immiscible, and the total mixed vol- B 2rw  o  r2 w 2rw  o þ r 2 w þ 2rð1  o  rÞ
ume is the sum of the individual volumes Vo and Vw . Applying conservation of mass, C rð1  wÞ rð1 þ 2rÞð1  wÞ
qðVo þ Vw Þ ¼ qo Vo þ qw Vw ) q ¼ qo / þ qw ð1  /Þ.

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 3 Fluid Characterization
Due to the strong dependence of both the density and sound
speed on temperature ðTÞ, the two components of the liquid mix-
ture have to be calibrated over a range of temperatures. For our
tests, samples of the component fluids (one of crude oil and one of
process water) from each oil field were obtained and the corre-
sponding densities and sound speeds at different temperatures
were fitted with Nth-order polynomials of the form
X
N X
N temperatures of interest.
co ¼ aoi T i ; cw ¼ awi T i ;
i¼0 i¼0
X
N X
N along with the calculated values of volume fraction as a function
qo ¼ boi T i ; qw ¼ bwi T i
i¼0 i¼0
where aoi and awi are the calibration coefficients for sound speeds
in crude oil and water respectively, while boi and bwi are the cali-
bration coefficients for crude oil and water densities, respectively.
Tests were conducted in the laboratory to measure sound speed
and density in the individual liquid phases at different tempera-
tures, the results of which are plotted in Fig. 1 for samples from
two different oil fields. The crude oil produced was different at
each field, both in API gravity as well as sound speed. To get the
pure individual phases, a sample of the liquid mixture was drawn
from the oil pipeline and then separated into its constituents using
a centrifuge. An Anton Paar density and sound velocity meter
Fig. 1 Measured sound speeds and densities of the constitu-
ent crude oil and processed water components with varying
temperature in two different sets of samples (from oil fields 1
and 2)
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(DSA 5000 M) was then used for the calibration; the published
accuracies of this equipment are 0.000005 g/cm3 and 0.5 m/s for
density and sound speed measurements, respectively. The process
water samples obtained from the two sites have very different
acoustic properties, mainly due to the presence of varying
amounts of salts and chemicals that are characteristic of the rock
substrate in an individual oil field [28]. For all four samples we
obtained, third order polynomials were sufficient to get a good
representation of the sound speeds and densities over the range of
The nondimensional parameters used to calculate the coeffi-
cients (Table 1) of the quadratic Eq. (12) are plotted in Fig. 2,
of temperature. We observed that for this particular pair of fluid
samples, jo =jw > 1 (compressibility of the crude oil samples was
greater than the process water samples) and r < 1 (density of
crude oil sample is lower than the corresponding process water
sample from the same oil field) at all measured temperatures; this
observation will be used in Sec. 4 to determine the properties of
the roots of the quadratic equation in Eq. (12) having the coeffi-
cients listed in Table 1. The plots of / for two different values of
c illustrate the importance of good temperature characterization of
the samples and the complex nature of the problem at hand since
there are an infinite number of combinations of / and temperature
(T) that can lead to the same sound speed in the mixture.
Plots in Figs. 3 and 4 show the variation in volume fraction /
as a function of the two independent variables c and T for the two
fluid sample pairs in our study. These calculations were carried
out using the Kuster–Toksöz model; the values using the Urick
model were almost the same. Keeping temperature constant, oil
volume fraction (/) decreases as the measured sound speed (c)
increases, as shown in Figs. 3(a) and 3(b). This is expected since
the speed of sound in pure crude oil is lower than that in the pure
process water, as observed in the calibrations (Fig. 1). The magni-
tude of the slopes of the curves are also greater at the lower tem-
peratures since the acoustic properties (sound speed) of the
individual components (crude oil and process water, in this case)
are more similar in this regime; in other words, at lower tempera-
tures, smaller changes in measured sound speed can lead to larger
changes in calculated volumetric composition. The greater slope
is expected since the volume fraction (/) changes by 100% within
a shorter range of sound speeds at lower temperatures, and vice
Fig. 2 Change in nondimensional parameters r 5 qo =qw ,
jo =jw , and / as a function of temperature. Solid lines are for
samples from oil field 1, while samples from field 2 are repre-
sented by dashed lines. The values of / were calculated for two
different sound speeds, 1450 m/s and 1500 m/s. The values of r
change from 0.883 to 0.867 for oil field 1, and from 0.787 to
0.773 for oil field 2.
OCTOBER 2012, Vol. 134 / 101301-3
 Fig. 3 Variation in calculated oil-cut as a function of measured
sound speed (using Kuster–Toksöz model), at different temper- Fig. 4 Variation in calculated oil-cut as a function of measured
ature levels that are characteristic of the respective field temperature (using Kuster–Toksöz model), at different sound
speeds

versa; for example, in Fig. 3(a), / changes from 1 to 0 while c

changes from 1320 m/s to 1541 m/s at 40  C, while the same range and
is covered while c changes from 1217 m/s to 1561 m/s at 70  C.
The trends for change in / as a function of temperature for jo qw c2w o
a particular measured sound speed, shown in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b), ¼  1 ¼)  1 ¼) ðo  wrÞ  0 (16)
jw qo c2o wr
however, vary greatly and a general conclusion cannot be reached.
One notable feature in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b) is the presence of a
stationary point in the lines representing c ¼ 1500 m/s, which From Eqs. (15) and (16), we can conclude that for both the
suggests that the same fluid composition (i.e., same value of /) Urick and Kuster–Toksöz models
can result in the same characteristic sound speed c at two different
temperatures. A ¼ ðo  wrÞð1  rÞ  0 (17)

Equation (14) also implies that

4 Analysis of Quadratic Roots
 2  2
In order to analyze the roots of the quadratic equation in c c
o¼  1 and w ¼ 1
Eq. (12), we start by assuming that for a certain temperature range co cw (18)
T 2 ½Tlow ; Thigh , the following relations apply: ¼) ð1  oÞ  0 and ð1  wÞ  0
qw  qo and cw  c  co (14)
The values of volume fraction / are plotted in Fig. 5 for a range
where c is the sound velocity measured in the composite two- of expected values of c/co and c/cw , as per Eq. (18), and show the
phase fluid. Using this, we can write typical variation in the dependent variable. This plot clearly shows
that the variation in / is nonlinear and is not as simple as the usual
rule-of-mixtures approach for mixture density (Fig. 2). Note that
qo
r¼  1 ¼) ð1  rÞ  0 (15) the density ratio r was kept constant for simplicity while getting
qw to know the nature of the variation; this, however, will not happen

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 o=w ¼ c2w =c2o  1
¼) o=w  r  1r
¼) w½rð1  rÞ  ðo=w  r Þ  w½rð1  rÞ  ð1  rÞ
¼) B  wð1  rÞ2
¼) B  0

for the Urick model. By a similar approach, the same inequality

can be proved for the Kuster–Toksöz model too. Hence, in both
cases, the sum of the roots satisfies the inequality

B
 0
A

from which it can be concluded that the roots of the quadratic

equation are always positive.
Note that for the Urick model,
Fig. 5 Calculated values of / for a range of values of c. r 5 0:8
was selected for this plot.
B 2rw  o  r 2 w
 ¼
2A ðo  rwÞð1  rÞ
ðo=w  1Þr
in real cases since r is also a function to temperature T (Fig. 2). ¼1þ (20)
ðo=w  rÞð1  rÞ
Fluid characterization results (shown in Sec. 3) show that a mean
value of r ¼ 0:8 is representative of the samples used in this
study. While w ¼ 1 corresponds to / ¼ 0 (all water), o ¼ 1 corre-
sponds to / ¼ 1 (all oil); this can be proved by substituting in the
quadratic coefficients and calculating roots.
For the Urick model, if o ¼ 1, i.e., c ¼ co , then

A ¼ ð1  wrÞð1  rÞ

B ¼ 2rw  o  r 2 w

C ¼ ð1  wÞr

¼) B2  4AC ¼ ð1  2r þ r 2 wÞ2
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
¼)  B þ B2  4AC ¼ 2ð1  rÞð1  rwÞ
¼) / ¼ 1

Also, when w ¼ 1, i.e., c ¼ cw , then

C¼0
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
B þ B2  4AC
¼) /¼ ¼0
2A

The variation of / is nonlinear with sections of higher slope

near the extremities (i.e., o ¼ 1 and w ¼ 1), which implies
that the variation in calculated value of the fluid volume fraction
(/) due to small changes in measured sound speed (c) will be
higher in these regions too. This is also verified in the next subsec-
tion on the sensitivity of derived volume fraction to measured
parameters.
Equation 18, along with the fact that 0  r  1, implies that

C0 (19)

for both models. Equations (17) and (19) tell us that

C
0
A
Fig. 6 Comparison between different methods of oil-water
fraction determination at two oil fields, where “new model”
from which it can be concluded that both roots of the quadratic refers to the algorithm developed in this paper starting from the
Eq. (12) are of the same sign for the set of assumptions in Kuster–Toksöz model. Note that the y-axes are in terms of per-
Eq. (14). Note that centage water-cut.

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 which is independent of the instantaneous measured sound speed
c; hence, the roots of Eq. (12) are dependent only on the value of
the discriminant at different values of c.
5 Results
5.1 Field Tests. Long duration tests with flowing liquid mix-
ture from oil wells were carried out at the two test sites and com-
pared with results from industrially recognized techniques (using
a Coriolis density meter and manual sampling); the results are
summarized in Fig. 6. The Coriolis meters had published density
measurement accuracy of 60:0002 g/cc, which was then used to-
gether with Eq. (2) to find oil volume fraction. The sound speed
through the composite liquid mixture in the pipeline was calcu-
lated by transmitting linear frequency chirps generated by acoustic
transducers placed on the outer wall of a steel pipe and then apply-
ing a cross correlation algorithm to derive the time of flight. The
compositions of the fluids at the two test sites were different from
each other; the fluid mixture at oil field 1 contained water predom-
inantly, while the oil content at oil field 2 averaged nearly 20% by
volume. The average flow rates through the pipe were also differ-
ent at the two locations; the first test oil field had mean flow rates
of 1000 barrels per day (0.4 m/s through a 77.9 mm diameter
pipe), while the second oil field averaged 6000 barrels per day
(2.4 m/s through a 77.9 mm diameter pipe).
As per industry methodology, the water-cut, or percentage
volume content of water, was calculated during the tests using cal-
ibration coefficients from Sec. 3. It was observed, from Figs. 6(a)
and 6(b), that the mean values (calculated over the duration of the
Fig. 7 Sensitivity of oil-cut calculation on changes in inde-
pendent measurements for samples from oil field 1
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entire test) of water fraction using the new model derived in this
paper were within 1% of the mean values obtained from the other
standard methods.
5.2 Sensitivity Studies. A numerical study of the sensitivity
of the oil-cut ð/Þ as a function of the measured temperature and
sound speed was also carried out for both sets of samples. This
was important since it yielded a good estimate of the effect of any
measurement error in the independent variables ðc; TÞ on /.
Figures 7(a) and 8(a) show the change in oil-cut value as a func-
tion of the measured sound speed c at different measured tempera-
ture levels. To interpret the plots, let us assume that the measured
temperature is 70  C at oil field 1 and the calculated sound speed
is 1500 m/s. The corresponding values of oil volume fraction /
and sensitivity @/=@c from Fig. 7(a) are 11% and 0.34%/m/s,
respectively, and imply that a 1 m/s error in measuring sound
speed will lead to 0.34% error in oil-cut calculation.
A similar estimate can be derived for temperature errors
too, assuming that sound speed has been measured accurately
(Figs. 7(b) and 8(b)). For example, if the measured sound speed at
oil field 2 is 1450 m/s and the temperature recorded is 20  C, then
an error of 1  C in measuring temperature will lead to almost 1%
error in calculated oil-cut (Fig. 8(b)).
It was observed that the sensitivity magnitudes are higher for
the composite fluid mixture at oil field 2, which operates at lower
temperatures; since the sound speeds of the individual fluid com-
ponents are much closer to each other at lower temperatures than
at higher temperatures (Fig. 1) an error in measuring the
Fig. 8 Sensitivity of oil-cut calculation to changes in inde-
pendent measurements for samples from oil field 2
Transactions of the ASME
 composite fluid property (sound speed or temperature) leads to
greater error in determining the volumetric composition.
6 Conclusions
This paper presents two algorithms, based on models developed
earlier by Urick [22] and Kuster–Toksöz [23], to calculate
individual volume fractions in a two-phase fluid mixture by meas-
uring sound speed and temperature in the composite fluid, and the
algorithms have been applied to two different mixtures of crude
oil and processed water. The results of applying the algorithms in
real time to samples from two different oil fields have been pre-
sented, along with comparisons with current industry accepted
techniques; the average values using the new algorithms are close
to other metering techniques (within 1%). Some notable conclu-
sions of this study are:
(i) The calculations for volume fraction (/) are a function of
the density and sound speed in each component, calibrated
for a range of operating temperatures.
(ii) Both models used to represent the composite density of
the fluid mixture result in a quadratic equation in / with
nondimensional coefficients.
(iii) Some properties of the roots can be determined based on
the values of the nondimensional quantities, subject to cer-
tain assumptions for the physical properties of the fluid
components (r < 1 and jo =jw > 1).
(iv) A numerical study of the sensitivity of the result to errors
in measured temperature and sound speed shows that
higher errors occur when the properties (sound speed) of
the two component fluids are similar to each other within
the temperature range of interest.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
Nomenclature
/¼ volume fraction of crude oil
j¼ compressibility of two-phase liquid mixture
q¼ density of composite two-phase liquid mixture
c¼ speed of sound through two-phase liquid mixture
V¼ volume
API ¼ American Petroleum Institute
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