Two-phase flow characterization through recurrence quantification analysis of the dominant features of experimental dynamics

•A novel strategy is proposed for the characterization of the dynamics of two-phase flows.•The system dynamics are separated in their principal components, eliminating high order noisy components.•Statistical RQA indices are extracted from the RPs of the 3 main principal components of experimental dynamics.•The comparison between the RQA indices is observed to provide a valid flow pattern classification tool.•The proposed strategy, based on two-phase inherent dynamics, can be easily exported to other types of two-phase flows.