Abstract Researchers around the world have proposed different methodologies for flow-pattern identification in multiphase flows. The most common explored techniques are based on optical imaging, pressure fluctuation, electrical impedance, radiation absorption, and ultrasound. Because the ultrasonic technique is relatively low in cost, easy to conduct, accurate, nonintrusive, and suitable for opaque systems, this paper presents a flow-pattern classifier based on ultrasound for two-phase vertical water–air flows. It is based on the coefficient of variation of the energy of the pulses reflected by the dispersed phase. Also, it uses just one ultrasonic transducer. An experimental plant was built to develop two-phase water–air flows to evaluate the proposed technique performance by comparing it to the visual analysis of the recorded image of the flow. A total of 102 different experimental points were collected and evaluated. The results have shown that the method was capable to distinguish dispersed bubbles, slug and churn flow patterns.

中文翻译：

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使用单个超声波换能器进行水-空气垂直流的流型分类

摘要 世界各地的研究人员提出了不同的多相流流型识别方法。最常见的探索技术基于光学成像、压力波动、电阻抗、辐射吸收和超声波。由于超声波技术成本相对较低、易于实施、准确、非侵入性且适用于不透明系统，本文提出了一种基于超声波的用于两相垂直水-空气流的流型分类器。它基于分散相反射的脉冲能量的变异系数。此外，它仅使用一个超声波换能器。建立了一个实验工厂来开发两相水 - 空气流，通过将其与记录的流动图像的视觉分析进行比较来评估所提出的技术性能。总共收集和评估了 102 个不同的实验点。结果表明，该方法能够区分分散的气泡、段塞和搅动流型。