Computer Vision and Deep Learning Based Determination Of Flow Regimes,
Void Fraction And Resistance Sensor Data In Microchannel Flow Boiling
Abstract
The aim of this article is to introduce a novel approach to identifying
flow regimes and void fractions in microchannel flow boiling, which is
based on binary image segmentation using digital image processing and
deep learning. The proposed image processing pipeline uses adaptive
thresholding, blurring, gamma correction, contour detection and
histogram comparison to separate vapour from liquid areas, while the
deep learning method uses a customized version of a convolutional neural
network (CNN) called Unet to extract meaningful features from video
frames. Both approaches enabled automatic detection of flow boiling
conditions, such as bubbly, slug, and annular flow, as well as automatic
void fraction calculation. Especially the CNN has demonstrated its
ability to deliver fast and dependable results, presenting an appealing
substitute to manual feature extraction. The U-net-based CNN was able to
segment flow boiling images with a Dice score of 99.1 % and classify
the above flow regimes with an overall classification accuracy of 91 %.
In addition, the neural network was able to predict resistance sensor
readings from image data and assign them to a flow state with a mean
squared error (MSE) < 10−6. This sensor signal prediction is
a promising first step towards automated, imageless prediction of
two-phase flow in microchannels using only the measurement data from
resistance sensors. The approaches discussed in this paper were
performed on an ordinary 6 GB NVIDIA laptop GPU using Python and are
general enough to be applied to other similar applications. The deep
learning model can be downloaded from: github.com/schepperlemark