Hybrid Ultrasonic Tomography With Multilevel Fusion in Particulate Flow: Visualizations on Inhomogeneous Solid (Metal)–Liquid Biphasic Medium

Both dynamic and static visualizations of biphasic fluid have been the focus of attention that received wide notices. This work focused on carrying out research on solid-liquid biphasic visualization which was common in slurry transportation or hydrocyclone. Multi-level fusion algorithms named single-path data fusion (SPDF), full-path data fusion (FPDF), and a hybrid algorithm of FPDF reconstruction with boundary enhancement method were proposed, which resulted in developing hybrid-ultrasonic process tomography (H-UPT). To verify the effects of tomographic fusion, different cases of monodisperse and polydisperse medium with spherical, ellipsoidal, and cubical distributions were carried out. The designed array mounted on polymethyl methacrylate pipe and the dynamic experiments of solid-liquid medium were executed. Quantitative analysis through the post-processing of experimental results had illustrated good consistence with the real dynamic level by a deviation no more than 6.04%. In overall considering of the accuracy (such as imaging spatial error and correlation coefficient) and average time-consuming of the FPDF algorithm, the H-UPT illustrated an effective application and technological potential for completing high precision imaging in particulate flow of varying shapes, dimensions and quantities.