Ultrasonic Monitoring of the Water Content in Concentrated Water–Petroleum Emulsions Using the Slope of the Phase Spectrum (original) (raw)
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Proceedings of the 21st IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37510), 2004
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.
Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification, 2006
This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the suitability of thick-film ultrasonic transducers for composition measurements in heterogeneous mixtures. Following on from earlier developments [G. Meng, A.J. Jaworski, T. Dyakowski, J.M. Hale, N.M. White, Design and testing of a thick-film dual-modality sensor for composition measurements in heterogeneous mixtures, Meas. Sci. Technol. 16(4) (2005) 942-954], focused on the design and preliminary testing of the transducers for mixtures of vegetable oil and salty water, the current paper looks in more detail into their application to industrially relevant fluids, namely crude oil and process water, which are common in oil and gas extraction and petrochemical industries. The measurements are based on the time-of-flight of the ultrasonic pressure wave in order to obtain the speed of sound. The results, showing the variation of the speed of sound with the volume fraction of crude oil, for three different temperatures, are compared with five theoretical models available in the existing literature. It is shown that the models proposed by Urick [R.J. Urick, A sound velocity method for determining the compressibility of finely divided substances, J. Appl. Phys. 18 (1947) 983-987] and by Kuster and Toksöz [G.T. Kuster, M.N. Toksöz, Velocity and attenuation of seismic waves in two-phase media. Part I. Theoretical formulations, Geophysics 39 (1974) 587-606] provide a relatively accurate prediction for the speed of sound in the media studied. Interestingly, the model developed by Povey and co-workers [V.J. Pinfield, M.J.W. Povey, Thermal scattering must be accounted for in the determination of adiabatic compressibility, J. Phys. Chem. B 101 (1997) 1110-1112] only agrees with experiment when its thermal scattering features are neglected. Overall, the results obtained demonstrate that the slim-line and compact thick-film transducers can be considered as a viable means for the composition measurements in the process conditions.
Effect of temperature on the ultrasonic properties of oil-in-water emulsions
Colloids and Surfaces A-physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 1998
The influence of temperature on the ultrasonic properties of oil-in-water emulsions was investigated. The ultrasonic velocity and attenuation coefficient of a series of corn oil-in-water emulsions with different disperse phase volume fractions (w=0 to 0.5) and mean droplet radii (r=0.1 to 0.5 mm) were measured as a function of temperature (5 to 50°C ). These measurements were in reasonable agreement with predictions made using ultrasonic scattering theory. The ultrasonic velocity of the emulsions was particularly sensitive to their composition, temperature and droplet size. Around 15°C, the ultrasonic velocity was fairly insensitive to oil concentration. Below this temperature, it increased with oil concentration, whilst above this temperature it decreased. The ultrasonic velocity increased with droplet size. The attenuation coefficient of the emulsions was much more sensitive to composition and droplet size, rather than temperature. It increased with oil concentration and decreased with temperature. The implications of these results for the use of ultrasound for determining the size distribution and concentration of droplets in emulsions are investigated.
Assessment of Water Concentration in Ethanol and Diesel Fuel Emulsions with Ultrasound
2012 Dallas, Texas, July 29 - August 1, 2012, 2012
Detection of water concentration in ethanol is important for several industries because of ethanol's widespread use in a number of products, including alcoholic beverages, solvents, and transportation fuels. The miscibility of ethanol with water and other polar liquids makes ethanol susceptible to adulteration beyond the specifications. In this study, adulteration of ethanol was simulated by mixing anhydrous ethanol with water at known concentrations. Ultrasound speed and temperature measurements were used to estimate the water concentration in ethanol using two mathematical models. The first model was based on statistical curve fitting to the experimental data, and the second model was based on a feed-forward, back-propagation neural network algorithm. A total of 651 data sets containing ultrasound speed and temperature as inputs and water concentration in ethanol as output were used to train the neural network algorithm. Both models were validated by preparing ethanol and water mixtures at known concentrations. Validation experiments showed that water concentration in ethanol-water mixtures can be determined by using ultrasound speed and mixture temperature with a standard error of prediction of 8.6% with neural network model and 12.4% with an empirical model. Improving the accuracy and increasing the number of data points for neural network training would reduce the prediction error. The measurements of ultrasound speed and temperature do not involve any moving parts, and the method is rapid and non-invasive, which makes the ultrasound measurement system suitable for online monitoring of water concentration in ethanol.
Effect of Ultrasonication on Stability of Oil in Water Emulsions
International Journal of Drug Delivery, 2011
Effect of ultrasonic waves on stability of oil in water system of light liquid paraffin oil (HLB = 12) as internal phase and tween20 (HLB = 16.7), span20 (HLB = 8.6) as emulsifying agents was studied. A comparison was made to determine the stability of emulsions prepared by mechanical agitation method and ultrasonication technique. Droplet size measurement method was used to determine the stability of emulsions. Physico-chemical parameters like concentration of emulsifying agent, volume fraction of dispersed phase, viscosity of continuous phase by adding glycerin to water were compared apart from the effect of emulsification time on stability of emulsions prepared with mechanical stirring and ultrasound. Ocular micrometer was used to determine the droplet size of the dispersed phase. Emulsions prepared by ultrasonic technique were found to be more stable for longer duration of time when compared to emulsions prepared by mechanical agitation which can be attributed to the small droplet size which is thermodynamically stabilized. Ultrasonic technique gave more stable emulsions than with mechanical agitation method. Emulsification time, volume fraction of dispersed phase, viscosity of continuous phase and concentration of emulsifying agents played a major role in the stability of emulsions.
ULTRASOUND MEASUREMENT OF THE CONTENT OF SOLID PARTICLES IN LIQUID MEDIA APPLIED TO OIL INDUSTRY
In oil industry, sand content in crude oils is commonly used as a parameter to determine the well deterioration level and to assess horizontal wells collapse risk. The sand content measurement is usually performed by a sand content meter device, which is based on a sieves system. This device requires a human operator to collect and analyze the crude oil samples. In order to allow a real time sand content monitoring in crude oil, this work presents a new ultrasonic technique to determine solid particle concentration in liquids. This technique consists in emitting an ultrasonic wave by an ultrasonic transducer and measuring the backscattered ultrasonic signals produced by sand particles. Therefore, the objective of this work is to develop a measurement cell based on the ultrasonic waves scattering to estimate the sand particles concentration in crude oil. The experimental observations were made with a measuring cell built for laboratory batch testing and continuous solid particles flow. Ultrasound transducers with central frequencies ranging from 5 and 10 M Hz in pulse-echo mode were used. Laboratory batch tests using sand particles ranging in size from 100 to 500 µm in diameter shown that there is a linear relationship between the volumetric fraction of particle and ultrasonic backscattered energy. The backscattered energy is proportional to the squared voltage measured from the receiving transducer. The echo signal mean energy at a given time window corresponds to the instantaneous flowing sand content through the cell. A micro-controlled feeder device was developed to perform tests on continuous solid particles flow. An analytical balance was used to calibrate the feeder to operate in the range from 2 to 20 mg/s, producing a water mixture ranging from 200 to 2000 ppm. Tests with continuous flow are in agreement with the expected results from the adopted methodology. A backscattered energy computational model based on a transducer impulse response and a plane piston model was developed to understand the experimental results. This model predicts the linear relationship between the backscattered energy and the particle concentration observed experimentally. The results demonstrate the technical feasibility of continuous flow measurements of sand in oil.
The ultrasonic measurement of high water volume fraction in dispersed oil-in-water flows
Chemical Engineering Science, 2013
We numerically study the ultrasonic field for oil bubbles in three different sizes. c We measure the oil bubble diameter by using the conductance sensors. c We study the effects of bubble size and oil volume fraction on the ultrasonic response. c We correlate oil volume fraction with flow measure upon symbolic dynamic filtering. c We measure the high water volume fraction upon flow measure and ultrasonic sensor.
Mass Fraction Measurements in Controlled Oil-Water Flows Using Noninvasive Ultrasonic Sensors
Journal of Fluids Engineering, 2014
Controlled flow rate tests using mixtures of crude oil and water at different mass fractions were carried out in a flow loop at the University of Tulsa. A noninvasive acoustic method developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was applied to calculate the mass and volume fractions of oil and water in the mixed two-phase flow by measuring the speed of sound through the composite fluid mixture along with the instantaneous temperature. The densities and sound speeds in each fluid component were obtained in advance for calibration at various temperatures, and the fitting coefficients were used in the final algorithm. In this paper, we present composition measurement results using the acoustic technique from LANL for different mixture ratios of crude oil and water and at varying flow rates and a comparison of the results from the acoustics-based method with those from Coriolis meters that measured individual mass flow rates prior to mixing. The mean difference between the two metering techniques was observed to be less than 1.4% by weight and is dependent on the total flow rates. A Monte Carlo analysis of the error due to calibration uncertainty has also been included. Downloaded From: http://fluidsengineering.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 01/30/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms