Developments in Magnetic Induction Tomography for Oil-Industry Applications

S. Watson2, C. Ktistis1, B Dekdouk1,D. W. Armitage1, A.J. Peyton1, R.J. Williams2 and H. Griffiths3

1 School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, M601QD, UK

2 Faculty of Advanced Technology, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL, UK

3 Department of Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering, Singleton Hospital, Swansea SA28QA, UK Email: a.peyton@manchester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

This paper presents some initial results of a study to evaluate the suitability of magnetic induction tomography (MIT) for imaging the water component in multi-phase flows. The methods used were as follows: An MIT experiment was constructed consisting of a circular 16-coil array. The diameter of the object space was 25 cm and the coil diameter was 50 mm. Several simple phantoms were constructed to represent different flow distributions. In addition, electromagnetic simulation techniques were used to support the experiments. Images were obtained using linear reconstruction techniques already reported in the literature.

The results show that it is possible to produce images of a comparable quality to other soft-field tomographic techniques in simple laboratory conditions. Isolated regions of conductivity are represented well in the images, however variations in conductivity within these regions are more difficult to resolve.

In conclusion, this is amongst the first reports of MIT images obtained for this application. Although conducted under highly simplified conditions, the results suggest that MIT has potential for monitoring the distribution of the water component in multi-phase processes.

Keywords Multiphase flow, Electromagnetic induction tomography, Water component