Experimental and simulation study of thononic crystal sensors for petroleum troducts characterization

Abstract

In this master thesis, a numerical and experimental investigation on the properties of a two-dimensional phononic crystal composed of a steel/air structure with square symmetry and a central filled defect hole was conducted. The application of the proposed phononic crystal as a liquid sensor for the characterization of complex hydrocarbon mixtures has also been discussed. The main objective of this project was to explore the use of phononic crystals as sensors for determining the bulk properties of hydrocarbon blend mixtures, such as ethanolgasoline and diluent-gasoil. The key findings of this work can be summarized as follows: • COMSOL Multiphysics optimization enables the definition of the edges of the phononic band gap, which can be adapted to accommodate different liquid analytes. • Volumetric properties such as the density and acoustic velocity of hydrocarbon mixtures can be determined using the proposed phononic crystal sensor. • The acoustic transmission of the resonant peak localized within the phononic band gap is directly related to the defined concentrations of the mixtures, including ethanol and diluent. • The shift in resonant frequencies as a function of concentration allows the construction of a calibration curve for the sensor. • The proposed phononic crystal-based sensor demonstrates a high quality factor, which is a dependent parameter of the bulk physical properties of the hydrocarbon blends. In future work, we aim to employ artificial intelligence tools, particularly machine learning models, to predict the acoustic resonant peak corresponding to unknown concentrations using a limited set of input parameters such as transmission data.