Non-Invasive Measurement of Fluid/Gas Characteristics in Harsh Environments

The US Navy is looking for a portable, non-invasive sensor system to collect flow performance data to support routine performance assessments of Navy hardware and predictions with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. The existing tomography imaging techniques for fluid/gas flow measurements have severe limitations to meet the above requirements. In this proposal, X-wave Innovations, Inc. (XII) outlines a novel Clamp-on Ultrasonic Tomography Imaging System (CUTIS) for non-invasive, continuous imaging/measurement of fluid/gas characteristics in a thick wall steel pipe under harsh environments. The proposed CUTIS system is based on XII-developed ultrasonic tomography imaging technology, which includes a multi-channel ultrasonic generator and receiver device and a set of tomography imaging algorithms. For the Phase I program, XII will prototype a CUTIS and demonstrate the feasibility of this technique for detecting/imaging the spatially-resolved and time-dependent multi-phase flow characteristics. For the Phase II program, XII will focus on refining the prototype system design and development with improved hardware and software. For the Phase III program, XII will focus on commercialization of the developed technology.