Vibration sensor approaches for the sand detection in gas–sand two phases flow

• Tiny size and dilute solid in gas–solid flow are monitored by vibration approaches.
• A real-time computational method for sand mass flow rate is firstly proposed.
• Sand characteristic frequency band filter can minimize the flow background noise.
• A good correlation between vibration energy and sand mass flow rate is found.

The real-time measurement of solid phase in gas–sand flow is significant in the process of industrial production, especially for the economic benefit of natural gas production. Aiming to improve the existing limitations in solid particle detection of a gas conveying system, a vibration detection device for gas–solid flow has been developed and its evaluation test is conducted indoor. This paper illustrates the application of special wideband vibration sensor and sand mass flow computing method to monitor gas–sand flow in pipeline. In this work, a real-time computational formula for sand mass flow rate was firstly proposed. Both of the gas background noise reduction and the calibrated reference sand signals were considered in this formula. Besides, time–frequency analysis and characteristic sand frequency band digital filter methods were proposed to enhance the ability of sand detection in heavy gas flow background noise. The experimental investigation considered gas–sand flow both with sand content ranging from 0.0156 vol.‰ to 0.1 vol.‰ and sand size ranging from 45 μm to 180 μm. The results showed that there was a good correlation (less than ± 8% uncertainties) between vibration energy and sand mass flow rate. Accordingly, the vibration technology provides a method for the detection of tiny particle size and dilute solid phase in solid–gas system, which lays the foundation for the quantitative particles detection in more complex multiphase flow.

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