Signal-to-noise ratio variance impact on the image reconstruction of electrical resistance tomography in solutions
Adriana Machado Malafaia da Mata1, Bruno Furtado de Moura2, Marcio Ferreira Martins1
1Laboratory for Computational Transport Phenomena (LFTC), Department of Postgraduate Studies in Mechanical Engineering, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES), Vitória-ES 29075-910, Brazil.
Abstract:
Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) has the potentialities of non-intrusive techniques and high temporal resolution which are essential characteristics for multiphase flow measurements. However, high background conductivities, such as saline water in oil extraction, impose a limitation in ERT image reconstruction. Focusing on the operational limits of an ERT tomography system operating in different conductivity backgrounds from 0.010 to 4.584 S/m, the impact on the image reconstruction was assessed via signal-to-noise variance. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) variance had a strong correlation (p-value = 5.40 × 10-15) with the image reconstruction quality at the threshold of 30 dB, reaching a correlation value of r = -0.92 in the range of 0.010-0.246 S/m. Regarding the position error of the phantom, p-value = 1.30 × 10-5 and r = -0.66 were attained. The global results revealed that the correlation of the mean of the SNR (p-value = 5 × 10-4 and r = 0.55) was kept unaltered through the whole conductivity range, showing that such a statistical index can induce bias in establishing the operational limits of the hardware.
