Measurement of gas–liquid two-phase flow using a combined swirler and V-cone device

With the rapid development of unconventional gas reservoirs, high gas–liquid ratio wet gas flow has become a typical phenomenon in surface transportation and processing systems. Accurate online measurement of such flows remains a critical challenge. Existing single differential pressure meters struggle to accurately resolve the complex dynamic interactions between gas and liquid phases. To address this challenge, this study proposes a novel dual differential pressure online measurement method that integrates a blade-type swirler with a V-cone throttling device. A combined methodology involving theoretical analysis, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and laboratory experiments is employed to characterize the swirl induced annular flow structure and to examine the coupling mechanism between the throttling differential pressure (DPT) and the radial differential pressure (DPR). The results indicate that these two pressure signals possess complementary sensitivity to variations in phase distribution. A coupled gas–liquid mass flow rate model is subsequently established based on the dimensionless Z and the gas-phase Froude number (Frg). Its iterative solution achieves mean absolute percentage errors of 5.03% for gas and 10.54% for liquid. This method offers a cost-effective and structurally robust solution for real-time wellhead monitoring. While currently validated under ambient low-pressure conditions, this framework lays a solid groundwork for future high-pressure and high-temperature field deployments.