Multi-phase flow decomposition using electrical capacitance volume tomography sensors

A system for generating a three-dimensional tomograph of a vessel interior or other object and for multi-phase flow decomposition, the system comprising:

• a three-dimensional capacitance sensor device comprising a plurality of electrodes for placement around the vessel or the object, wherein the three-dimensional capacitance sensor device is adapted to provide electric field distribution and sensor sensitivity in three geometric dimensions;
• data acquisition electronics in communication with the three-dimensional capacitance sensor device for receiving input data from the three-dimensional capacitance sensor device, the data acquisition electronics adapted to output electric phase shift information at different frequencies;
• a processing system in communication with the data acquisition electronics, the processing system programmed with instructions for executing on the processing system to:
• 1) determine a plurality of frequency markers for the multi-phase flow;
• 2) measure electric phase shift in degrees or radians between an input signal to the sensor device and the current produced at an output of the sensor device at all of the plurality of frequency markers;
• 3) reconstruct volume images of each phase individually from the electric phase shift measured at all of the plurality of frequency markers.

A system for generating a three-dimensional tomograph of a vessel interior or other object and for multi-phase flow decomposition, the system comprising:

• a three-dimensional capacitance sensor device comprising a plurality of electrodes for placement around the vessel or the object, wherein the three-dimensional capacitance sensor device is adapted to provide electric field distribution and sensor sensitivity in three geometric dimensions;
• data acquisition electronics in communication with the three-dimensional capacitance sensor device for receiving input data from the three-dimensional capacitance sensor device, the data acquisition electronics adapted to output electric phase shift information at different frequencies;
• a processing system in communication with the data acquisition electronics, the processing system programmed with instructions for executing on the processing system to:
• 1) determine a plurality of frequency markers for the multi-phase flow;
• 2) measure electric phase shift in degrees or radians between an input signal to the sensor device and the current produced at an output of the sensor device at all of the plurality of frequency markers;
• 3) obtain permittivity distributions at each of the frequency markers using volume tomography image reconstruction;
• 4) determine volume fraction of each phase at each pixel location;
• 5) produce images of volume fraction for each phase.