REAL-TIME ULTRASONIC CHARACTERIZATION OF FLUIDS AND SLURRIES: PROCESS TECHNIQUES APPLICABLE IN THE OFFSHORE ENVIRONMENT
In the harsh environment of the world’s oceans instrumentation must be robust and able to operate unattended for long periods of time. Ultrasonic sensors developed and deployed to characterize physical properties of radioactive waste slurries provide a unique robust method for non-invasively characterizing multiphase pipe flows, such as crude oil extracted in the ocean environment and transported via pipeline to tankers or to shore. Ultrasonic interrogation modalities that measure speed of sound, reflection coefficient, attenuation and backscatter can be used to characterize dense opaque suspensions and to provide real-time in-situ measurements of fluid and slurry physical properties. These measurements of density, viscosity, solids concentration, particle size, and fouling detection can be deployed for use in the process vessels, pipelines and river/ocean environments. Transducers mounted in spool-pieces, or for large tanks and vessels suspended in the fluid, can be used to measure fluid or slurry density, solids concentration, rheology, viscosity, detect changes in particle size and detect interfaces, such as those between air and oil and oil and water. The robustness of the interrogation technique can provide techniques well suited to the harsh off-shore oil industry and ocean environments.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1455318
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-41080; AB0565000
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ASME 23rd International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, June 20-25 2004, Vancouver, Canada, 3:883-886, Paper No. OMAE2004-51651
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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