Novel metering system of a three-phase oil flow in horizontal pipeline

A novel technique is developed to measure the oil and water contents of a horizontal petroleum carrying pipeline. It is based on measuring the conductance and the capacitance in two different locations of the pipe. Each location requires two cylindrical conducting sheets, each covering half of the inner surface of the pipeline and is separated by small gaps at the top and bottom of the pipe. The measurement of the conductance is shown to be sufficient to determine the quantity of brine inside the pipe, while the measurement of the capacitance provides the oil flow rate. Experimental results are used to validate theoretical formulation and the numerical solution. The results are found to be comparable with existing data available in the literature.