Um novo método ultrassônico para detecção da posição da interface em escoamentos bifásicos ar-água

Abstract

Ultrasonic measurement techniques for velocity estimation are currently widely used in flow study due to its non-intrusive nature. The difficulty on the application of this methodology to a two-phase air-water flow is in deciding from which phase the velocity data measured comes from. This problem involves the task of evaluating gas-liquid interface position. The algorithm known as Velocity Matched Spectrum (VMS) is a velocity estimator that stands out from other methods by returning a spectrum of velocities for each interrogated volume sample. In this work a method based on velocity spectrum curve shape is used to generate a spatial-temporal mapping, which, after spatial filtering, yields an accurate contour of the air-water interface. Therefore, a measurement system that implements VMS estimator was developed and validated through a rotating cylinder and a horizontal single-phase pipe turbulent flow experiments. Interface detection of free-rising bubbles in quiescent liquid presents some difficulties for interface detection due to abrupt changes in interface inclination. It is showed that the proposed technique yields a RMS error between 1.71 to 3.39 and a probability of detection failure or false detection between 0.89% to 11.9% in determining the spatial-temporal gas-liquid interface position in the flow of free rising bubbles in stagnant liquid. This result is valid for both free path and with transducer emitting through a metallic plate or a Plexiglas pipe.