Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N153-131

Description

To address the Navys need for non-invasive measurement of fluid/gas characteristics for performance assessment of Navy hardware systems in harsh environment, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Magnetic resonance Flow measurement System (MAFLS) that provides spatially resolved time-dependent non-invasive measurement of highly turbulent supersonic flow. The proposed MAFLS is based on half Fourier echo-planar magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, which enables fast response time and sampling rate to collect flow data. By using time-efficient half Fourier techniques for reconstruction, the latency in image acquisition is shortened, which also improves the resolution, making MAFLS capable of discerning the presence of water, gas, and/or steam flowing within a 19-in. diameter, short (<5 in. of straight length), curved, 2-in.-thick steel pipe at flow speed of up to 800 ft/s. In Phase I, the feasibility of MAFLS will be demonstrated by analysis, modeling and simulation, and laboratory demonstrations. Based on Phase I results, POC will further develop and demonstrate, in Phase II, MAFLS sized to fit within an approximately 3x3x3 volume, capable of measuring and accurately quantifying (to within 10%) the flow characteristics (i.e., pressure, temperature, density, void-fraction, and/or velocity) of a multi-phase fluid that is multi-species, compressible, and highly turbulent.