Simulation Research on Frequency Optimization for Oil-Water-Gas Regimes Identification Using Invasive Approach of Ultrasonic Tomography

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation study of imaging and visualizing of the three-phase mixture (oil, air, and water) using an invasive ultrasonic tomography approach. Therefore, sound wave propagation phenomena of ultrasonic transducers and its conditions passing through different component have been studied and utilized to simulate and reconstruct the images for the mixture. The change of wave pressure and direction happens when waves go through the interface of two materials boundaries. In this study, 16 transducers have been mounted around the column invasively in order to improve the quality of measurement and spatial resolution of the reconstructed images. Finite Element Method (FEM) has been used to model the system, conduct a feasibility study of the performance, and analysis by simulation using COMSOL Multiphysics simulation software. Transmission mode sensing technique has been proposed in this study. Five different operating frequencies (40 kHz, 250 kHz, 333 kHz, 400 kHz, 500 kHz), reconstructing algorithms were examined to confirm substantially the suitable frequency for imaging three different materials (multiphase mixture) as proposed in this study. Four analytical and statistical image reconstruction algorithms (Linear Back Projection algorithm (LBP), Filter-Back Projection (FBP), Newton’s One?Step Error Reconstruction (NOSER), and Tikhonov Regularization algorithm (Tk) were applied to visualize the result for the three-phase mixture. Eventually, evaluation of this study was assessed by using the Mean Structural Similarity Index (MSSIM). The conclusion of this study provided new findings of ultrasonic tomography approach for three-phase mixture research field, where optimum operating frequency is 500 kHz and the suitable image reconstruction algorithms for this study is Tikhonov.