APPLICATION OF ULTRASONIC TOMOGRAPHY TO MONITORING GAS LIQUID FLOW/

On the basis that a gas/liquid two-phase flow was considered as a stro ngly inhomogeneous medium due to the high contrast in acoustic impedan ce distribution, the authors analysed the inherent dependency of the i ncomplete tomographic projections on the distribution of bubbles in li quid when using transmission-mode (TM) ultrasound computerized tomogra phy (UCT). A mathematical model describing the acoustic characteristic s of this flow was established. A transmission-mode ultrasonic system for tomographic imaging of gas/liquid flow was designed based upon a f ast binary back-projection image reconstruction algorithm. Emphasis wa s made on the evaluation of its performance and its application to flo w regime identification. Several flow pattern models were made and the corresponding monitoring results were given. Finally, limitations and possible future implementations of the system are discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.