Magnetic susceptibility based magnetic resonance estimation of micro-bubble size for the vertically upward bubbly...

The approach originally developed for the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance analysis of stable micro-bubbles is applied to studies of vertical bubbly flows. A very fast dispersion (diffusion) of water in bubbly flows extends the fast diffusion limit down to short (2-10 ms) measurement times, permitting the use of the simplified analytical expression to extract the micro-bubble size information both in bulk and spatially resolved. The observed strong bubble-induced reduction in T(2)(*) necessitates the use of very short encoding times and pure phase encoding methods to accurately measure the void fraction. There was an expected underestimation of bubble sizes at faster flow rates due to the limitations of the theory derived for small bubble sizes and non-interacting spherical bubbles (low void fractions and slow flow rates). This approach lends itself to studies of bubbly flows and cavitating media characterized by small bubble sizes and low void fractions.