Development of a high-speed ultrasonic tomography system for measurements of rising bubbles in a horizontal cross-section

The present study deals with high-speed ultrasonic tomography (UT) as a powerful tool to characterize the behavior of multiphase flows. A major goal of the work is to improve the temporal resolution for the detection of transit flow structures and time-dependent phenomena such as the incidence of rising gas bubbles. A special transducer with a wide divergence angle of 110° and a vertical height of the measurement volume of approx. 4 mm was developed and tested. The system thus enables the acquisition of cross-sectional images at a frame rate of up to 1,000 frames/s. Scatter noise was eliminated using a time series filtering method. This UT system was applied to a chain of gas bubbles rising in a cylindrical container with an internal diameter of 50 mm. The measurement system provides qualitative observations of the turbulent dynamics of bubbly flows including bubble-bubble interactions, such as the coalescence of individual bubbles.