Design of Mobile Gas, Liquid and Sand Three-phase Level Ultrasonic Measurement System

Abstract

The accuracy of sand discharge measurement in shale gas wells directly determines production safety. However, existing level
detection instruments commonly suffer from low reliability, susceptibility to interference, high costs, and poor environmental performance,
making them ill-suited for operating conditions involving thick-walled sediment tanks, coexisting gas-solid-liquid phases, and complex noise
environments. To address these challenges, this paper presents a mobile ultrasonic measurement system for gas, liquid, and sand three-phase
levels based on acoustic impedance matching and solid particle collision acoustic emission mechanisms. The system captures stress wave signals generated by sand particle collisions with pipe walls using an externally mounted wideband piezoelectric sensor array. Through adaptive
filtering and signal enhancement processing, it effectively suppresses interference while integrating ultrasonic transmission, reception, control,
and probe drive modules to achieve non-invasive, high-precision level measurement. The hardware module features a 1MHz high-frequency
high-voltage pulse generator in the transmission circuit and a three-stage processing amplifier in the reception circuit, with probe drive displacement accuracy reaching 0.01mm. The software implements workflow-based control for coordinated signal acquisition and processing.
This system combines high sensitivity, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness, providing an engineering solution for
sediment tank level monitoring in shale gas wells.