Determination of bubble characteristics in bubble columns using statistical analysis of acoustic sound measurements

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic procedure to utilize the acoustic measurements in bubble columns for bubble characterization. Statistical tools based on zero crossings are employed to detect the bubble pulsation count and frequency. Autocorrelation functions are also exploited to provide accurate estimation of the bubble frequency. The detected bubble frequency can be used to compute the bubble size. On the other hand, the pulsation count is used to determine the bubble-size distribution. A narrow bubble-size distribution was obtained, which confirms that the column is operating in a homogeneous regime. The root mean square of the acoustic pressure is used to estimate the void fraction (gas holdup), which revealed excellent agreement with the experimentally measured holdup.