Acoustic Wave Testing System for Monitoring the Vapor Chamber in Vapor Extraction Process

Abstract

Abstract The acoustic wave detection system is considered a non-destructive monitoring system to estimate distances using measurement of the time-of-flight of an ultrasonic wave. In this paper, a comprehensive experimental study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of the acoustic wave detection system in monitoring the shape and position of the gas phase in the vapor extraction process. For this purpose, various stages of vapor chamber evolution in the Vapex process were experimentally simulated by changing the shape of air balloons buried in simulated porous media in a lab scale model. Then, an array of ultrasound transducers and receivers were used to measure time-of-flights at different stages of the vapor chamber growth. Finally, the collected data were fed into a signal processing program developed in this study to determine the shape of the vapor chamber. Conducted analysis in this study include: sound speed testing in different porous media, signal attenuation tests in different porous media, imaging of different simulated vapor chambers in different porous media, and the acquisition and analysis experiments. Results show that acoustic wave detection can be used for accurate mapping of the position and shape of the vapor chamber in the studied process. Monitoring the shape and growth of the vapor chamber provides valuable information for optimizing oil production in order to maximize oil recovery. This is the first attempt at using acoustic wave detection techniques in monitoring the phase movement in the Vapex process. Results of this study show that this technique can be potentially used for this purpose.