Comparison of noise reduction methods in radiometric correlation measurements of two-phase liquid-gas flows. (December 2018) - Zych, Marcin
Graphical abstract: Highlights: Investigation of liquid-gas flow in a horizontal pipe using gamma-ray absorption. Measurements of the time delay and dispersed phase velocity using cross-correlation. Analysis of distortions of signals obtained from scintillation detectors. Application of four methods in the time and frequency domain for noise reduction. Abstract: Two-phase liquid-gas flows occur frequently in the mining, energy, chemical, and petrochemical industries. One of non-contact methods used to analyse these flows is the gamma ray absorption method. However, the signals received from radiation detectors contain a significant stochastic noise, which makes them difficult to analyse. The article describes four methods of noise reduction in cross-correlation measurements of water-air mixture flows in a horizontal pipeline. In addition to the classical method of digital filtering of signals, the methods consisting in signal spectrum filtering, discrete wavelet transformation, and Nadaraya-Watson kernel estimator are described. Sample results of the measurements carried out in the horizontal pipe having the inner diameter of 30 mm for the air bubbles velocity ranging from 0.7 to 1.4 m/s are presented. In the research, the absorption set composed of two linear Am-241 gamma-ray sources and two scintillation NaI(Tl) probes was used. It was found that the lowest measurement uncertainty of the dispersed phase flow velocity is obtained when the cross-correlation distributions of the recorded signals are smoothed using the Discrete Wavelet Transform or the Nadaraya-Watson kernel estimator.