A new ultrasonic-based device for accurate measurement of oil, emulsion, and water levels in oil tanks (original) (raw)

2004, Proceedings of the 21st IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37510)

In the oil industry, many applications require the measurement of more than one liquid level interface, often in challenging environments. In this paper, an ultrasonic technique has been developed to examine the propagation of ultrasonic waves in the oil, water, and mixed oil-water liquids. The technique is expanded to determine the oil, emulsion, and water levels in an oil tank. A dedicated compact, low-cost, and programmable ultrasound-based Multi-layer level measurement (MLLM) device has been designed and implemented. The advantages of the new method over the current methods include contactless distance measurement, higher accuracy, lower cost, user friendly, simpler setup, and using non-nuclear rays. Additionally, the use of ultrasonic waves for the measurement has the advantage over light-based methods of being insensitive to dusty and smoky environment and almost independent of the object material and surface. Preliminary experiments have been conducted on the device. In this paper, the design and operating parameters of this device are discussed and evidence for the satisfactory performance is given.