Development of A-scan ultrasound technique for measuring local particle concentration in slurry flows

The effects of solid particle concentration on hydraulic performance and wear need to be considered during the design of slurry transport equipment used in the petroleum and mining industries. The acoustic properties of slurry flows such as velocity, backscatter, and attenuation as a function of volume fraction of solid particles are examined in this study. An ultrasound A-mode imaging method is developed to obtain particle concentration in a flow of soda lime glass particles (diameter of 195 μm) and water slurry in a 0.0254 m diameter pipe. Based on the acoustic properties of the slurry, a technique is developed to measure local solid particle concentrations. The technique is used to obtain concentration profiles in homogeneous (vertical flow) and non-homogeneous (horizontal flow) slurry flows with solid particle concentrations ranging from 1 to 10% by volume using a window size of 0.159 cm. The profiles show average concentration within each window vs. distance from the transducer face. For horizontal flow, profiles are obtained for average flow velocities of 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 m/s. The algorithm developed utilizes the power spectrum and attenuation measurements obtained from the homogeneous loop as calibration data in order to obtain concentration profiles in other (i.e. non-homogenous) flow regimes. A computational study using FLUENT is performed and a comparison is made with the experimental results. Reasonable agreement between the experimental and computational results is observed. The ultrasound technique has proven to be useful in characterizing slurry flows containing concentrations too high to be investigated using optical techniques.