Experimental and numerical study on bubble behaviour using electrostatic model around wire–mesh sensor

Abstract A wire–mesh sensor (WMS) has been used in multiphase flow to measure phase characteristics. For accuracy of the WMS, many researches have been performed. However, the intrusive effect caused by a wire–mesh structure has not been considered. In this study, this limitation was overcome by development of a novel numerical method. The wire–mesh structure was emplaced to confirm the dynamics of a bubble around the WMS. The numerical simulation was carried out for electrostatic and multiphase flow with the volume of fluids method. User-defined function was used for the governing equation of electric field and boundary conditions to simulate the operation of the WMS. For numerical accuracy, results from both experiment and numerical simulation were compared. By electric field affected by the bubble, the overshooting in the WMS could be analyzed. Also, conversion methods were compared to reduce the discrepancy of volume fraction for the exact results.