Characterization of chaotic dynamic behavior in the gas–liquid slug flow using directed weighted complex network analysis

Understanding the nonlinear and complex dynamics underlying the gas–liquid slug flow is a significant but challenging problem. We systematically carried out gas–liquid two-phase flow experiments for measuring the time series of flow signals, which is studied in terms of the mapping from time series to complex networks. In particular, we construct directed weighted complex networks (DWCN) from time series and then associate different aspects of chaotic dynamics with the topological indices of the DWCN and further demonstrate that the DWCN can be exploited to detect unstable periodic orbits of low periods. Examples using time series from classical chaotic systems are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. We construct and analyze numbers of DWCNs for different gas–liquid flow patterns and find that our approach can quantitatively distinguish different experimental gas–liquid flow patterns. Furthermore, the DWCN analysis indicates that slug flow shows obvious chaotic behavior and its unstable periodic orbits reflect the intermittent quasi-periodic oscillation behavior between liquid slug and large gas slug. These interesting and significant findings suggest that the directed weighted complex network can potentially be a powerful tool for uncovering the underlying dynamics leading to the formation of the gas–liquid slug flow.

► We infer the directed weighted complex network from experimental time series.
► We using complex network characterize chaotic dynamics associated with unstable periodic orbits from time series signals.
► Our method can quantitatively distinguish different gas–liquid flow patterns.
► Our method can characterize the chaotic dynamic behavior in the gas–liquid slug flow.
► Broader applicability of our method is demonstrated and articulated.