3D visualisations of the microstructure of flocculated particulates and sediments using optical confocal laser microscopy and high resolution X-ray microtomography (XMT) methods are described. Data obtained from in-situ measurements should enable direct computation of the properties of solids assembly (shape, size, contact area) and their permeability to fluids. A specific application relating to the formation of silica aggregates is described from which the behaviour of sediments containing these materials can be predicted on the basis of a bench-top test and the use of a Lattice Boltzman simulation. It is proposed that the method can potentially be used to predict trends such as the filtration behaviour of porous structures under different states of compression. This offers a significant benefit in assisting the formulation design of flocculated materials pertinent to a number of industrial sectors wishing to design optimal filtration or relevant operations.

Electrical tomography is, in certain cases, the most attractive method for real imaging of industrial processes, because of its inherent simplicity, rugged construction of the tomographer and high-speed capability. This paper presents examples illustrating applications of electrical tomography for imaging fluidized beds, bubble columns and pneumatic conveyors. Electrical tomography opens up new ways for processing, imaging and modelling multi-phase flows as shown by 2D and 3D images illustrating the various types of flow morphology.

Body-scanning exploiting 3-D imaging has revolutionised diagnostics and treatment in medicine. Process engineers would like to be similarly able to image chemical process units in 3-D, but without the £multi-million price tag. UMIST and Leeds University have together, through the Virtual Centre for Industrial Process Tomography (http://www.vcipt.org), pioneered several electrical process tomography techniques and used them in a variety of applications. Illustrations are presented to show how electrical resistance tomography (ERT) has been developed for typical stirred vessels widely encountered in batch process manufacturing. The technique is potentially fast and inexpensive and capable of imaging both dynamic and pseudo-stationary processes. Examples from UMIST’s two-tonne vessel will be presented for miscible tracer mixing, as well as gas-liquid and solid-liquid mixing.

This paper presents different views on electrode modelling, which include electrode electrochemistry models for modelling the effects of electrode-electrolyte interface, electric field electrode models for modelling electrode geometry, and electrode models for modelling the effects of electrode common mode voltage and double layer capacitance. Taking the full electrode models into consideration in electrical impedance tomography (EIT) will greatly help the optimised approach to a good solution and further understanding of the measurement principle.

In this paper, we describe some recent imaging technologies developed by Schlumberger for oilfield downhole multiphase flow production logging (PL) and cross-well electromagnetic (EM) survey applications. FloScan Imager (FSI^TM) has been introduced as a 3-phase oil/gas/water flow PL tool for deviated and horizontal wells. FSI sensors can map fluid velocity and holdup profiles along a vertical diameter of the wellbore at every survey depth, enabling a robust estimate of the individual phase flow rates in complex flow regimes. The cross-well EM survey is based on cross-borehole induction logging technique and provides resistivity distribution at a reservoir scale. It is a useful tool for reservoir management and is most effective in dynamic fields where fluid saturations are variable in time and space. The tool can be used to identify (water or steam) flooded and bypassed regions. By monitoring changes in the resistivity spatial distribution with time, cross-well EM survey is very effective at mapping inter-well temperature and structure. Some field examples are shown for both FloScan Imager PL tool and cross-well resistivity imaging survey.

Most image reconstruction algorithms developed for electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) can only reconstruct qualitative images. Stabled quantitative image reconstruction is necessary for many applications. To get stable ECT image, the authors constructed a compressive operator and developed a new iterative algorithm, which can overcome the semi-convergence occurring in the Landweber iteration reconstruction technique. Experimental results showed that the stability and quality of reconstructed images are improved significantly.

Volumetric fraction distribution measurement is a constituent part of process tomography system in oil-water-gas multiphase flow. With the technological development of nuclear radial inspection, dual-energy γ-ray techniques make it possible to investigate the concentration of the different components on the cross-section of oil-water-gas multiphase pipe-flow. The dual-energy gamma-ray technique is based on materials attenuation coefficients measurement comprised of two radioactive isotopes of ²⁴¹Am and ²⁴¹Cs which have emission energies at 59.5 keV and 662 keV in this project. Nuclear instruments and data acquisition system were designed to measure the material’s attenuation dose rate and a number of static tests were conducted at the Multiphase Laboratory, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Three phases of oil-water-gas media were investigated for their possible use to simulate different media volumetric fraction distributions in experimental vessels. Attenuation intensities were measured, and the arithmetic of linear attenuation coefficients and the equations of volumetric fractions were studied. Investigation of an unexpected measurement error from attenuation equations revealed that a modified arithmetic was involved and finally the system achieved acceptable accuracy in experimental research.

This paper presents the use of a high performance dual-plane electrical resistance tomography (ERT) system and a local dual-sensor conductance probe to measure the vertical upward oil-in-water pipe flows in which the mean oil volume fraction is up to 23.1%. A sensitivity coefficient back-projection (SBP) algorithm was adopted to reconstruct the flow distributions and a cross correlation method was applied to obtain the oil velocity distributions. The oil volume fraction and velocity distributions obtained from both measurement techniques were compared and good agreement was found, which indicates that the ERT technique can be used to measure the low fraction oil-water flows. Finally, the factors affecting measurement precision were discussed.

This paper discusses the principle and mathematical method to measure the phase fractions of multiphase flows by using a dual-energy gamma-ray system. The dual-energy gamma-ray device is composed of radioactive isotopes of ²⁴¹Am and ¹³⁷Cs with emission energies of 59.5 keV and 662 keV respectively. A rational method to calibrate the absorption coefficient was introduced in detail. The statistical error has been analyzed on the basis of the accurate absorption coefficient which enables determination phrase fractions almost independent of the flow regime. Improvement has been achieved on the measurement accuracy of phase fractions.

UTT (Ultrasonic Tomography Tool) is widely used in the oil industry and can be used to inspect corrosion, casing wall damage, casing breakoff, and casing distortion in the well borehole with the maximum environment temperature being 125 °C, and the pressure being 60 MPa. UTT consists of tool head, upper centralization, electronic section, lower centralization, transmitters, and receivers. Its outer diameter is 4.6 cm and length is 320 cm. The measured casing diameter ranges from 60 mm to 254 mm. The tomography resolution is 512×512. The borehole measurement accuracy is 2 mm. It can supply 3D pipe tomography, including horizontal and vertical profile. This paper introduces its specification, measurement principle, and applications in oilfield.

Terahertz process tomography (PT) is a new technology for multiphase flow measurement. T-ray PT prototype based on analysis of the T-ray’s merits was proposed and an NIR PT simulation system was developed in this paper. The architecture, algorithm and characteristics of the simulation system were studied through experimental test. Evaluations of the simulation system performance and corresponding promotional approach were made. It was shown that the solution of simulation system could be adapted for THz PT technology, and that the experimental results proved that the simulation system itself is suitable for parameter measurement of two-phase flow.

A new voidage measurement method based on electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) technique, Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Partial Least Square (PLS) method was proposed. The voidage measurement model, linear capacitance combination, was developed to measure on-line voidage. GA and PLS method were used to determine the coefficients of the voidage measurement model. GA was used to explore the optimal capacitance combination which gave significant contribution to the voidage measurement. PLS method was applied to determine the weight coefficient of the contribution of each capacitance to the voidage measurement. Flow pattern identification result was introduced to improve the voidage measurement accuracy. Experimental results showed that the proposed voidage measurement method is effective and that the measurement accuracy is satisfactory.

Simulation and optimization were applied to a capacitive sensor system based on electrical tomography technology. Sensors, consisting of Morgantown Energy Technology Center (METC) axial synchro driving guard electrodes and two sets of detecting electrodes, make it possible to obtain simultaneously two groups of signals of the void fraction in oil-gas two-phase flow. The computational and experimental results showed that available sensors, charactered by high resolution and fast real-time response can be used for real-time liquid-gas two-phase flow pattern determination.

The fan-beam optical sensor is made up of many semiconductor lasers and detectors fixed around the wall alternately at a cross section of pneumatically conveying pipe. When the sensor works, a scanning light source emits a 50° lamellar fan-beam through the gas-solid two phase flow, and the projection data resulting extinction effect of solid particles are detected at the same time. With the projection data, the flow rate mass can be calculated, and then the flow image can be reconstructed. In this paper, the design of the sensor including spatial arrangement of the structural parts, basic principle and measurement sensitivity distribution are introduced. The mathematical measurement model of solid mass flow rate is presented together with the testing results.

A new electrical resistance tomography (ERT) system, based on the bi-directional current pulse technique, is developed. Polarization effects at the electrodes are eliminated. During each half cycle of the excitation process, direct current DC) is used as the excitation source and filtering is not needed. Moreover, using optimized data collection protocol, the number of current injections for a 16-electrode system is reduced to 14 for 104 independent readings of an image. Experimental results showed that the system is effective using the sensitivity coefficient algorithm for image reconstruction.