Particle sizing in dense two-phase droplet systems by ultrasonic attenuation and velocity spectra

Size and size distribution of particles in particulate two-phase flow play an important role in a wide variety of industrial areas, while their measurement still remains a hard task till now. Ultrasonic wave as a mechanical vibration contains plenty of information about medium when it passes through. Thus the size distribution could be extracted from the measured ultrasonic attenuation and velocity spectra by means of well established models and data processing techniques. This paper contributes to the extraction of information of droplet size of a two-phase fat emulsion simultaneously from signals of broad-band ultrasonic attenuation and velocity spectra. According to the formulated single particle scattering model, the relationship between particle size distribution and ultrasonic spectrum is established. The sensitivities of ultrasonic spectra to the variation of particle size are illustrated. Distinguishing features for attenuation and velocity spectra are summarized. Demonstration calculations of inversion by optimum regularization factor method are carried out to yield the typical numerical results for discussion. Based on the proposed inversion algorithm and theoretical model, a fat emulsion sample with a volume fraction up to 20% is measured and analyzed. To validate the proposed ultrasonic spectrum particle sizing method, the results are compared to those obtained from optical measurement.