System for detection of drift of the water volume fraction in a flow

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system for measuring the water volume fraction (WVF) of a mixed fluid flow in a pipe, especially wet and dry gas hydrocarbon fluid flows, the system comprising a measuring unit for measuring the dielectric permittivity of said fluid mixture, a computing unit for calculating and storing both the WVF, based on the absolute level of the dielectric permittivity, and the statistical variation of the dielectric permittivity of said fluid mixture over a predetermined period of time. The system also including an analysis unit for detecting drift in the measured WVF by comparing and analyzing the development of the WVF versus the statistical variation of the permittivity over said time period, and based on detected drift to determine whether an apparent change in the WVF is reflected in a corresponding change in the statistical variation of the permittivity, and, based on said comparison, determining if the drift is caused by a real change in the WVF.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.