PHASE DISCRIMINATION IN VOID FRACTION MEASUREMENTS VIA GENETIC ALGORITHMS

The paper deals with the difficulties of reconstructing a hydrodynamic structural function from a time-dependent raw signal produced by a se nsor. In the presence of two fluid phases, the deformation of a phase interface at a sensor leads to a lag between the occurrence and the de tection of the event, and the probe response characteristics may be al tered with time for several reasons. A new phase discrimination techni que is presented based on man-machine interaction and utilizing geneti c optimization. To discriminate the phases, two-point threshold discri mination is proposed at first. In addition, a man-machine method is in troduced which can mimic a human expert observation of a raw signal an d his intuitive discrimination procedure. Finally, genetic algorithms are used to search for those threshold settings that produce solutions closest to those defined by an expert. The proposed new method is cap able of adaptation to specific flow conditions. (C) 1995 American Inst itute of Physics.