Patent ID: 7676344

Claim:
A method for controlling the quality of a mass density measurement of a multiphase fluid mixture (FM) comprising a plurality of fluid fractions and a plurality of constituting elements, the method comprising the steps of: submitting a measuring pipe ( 3 ) to a flux of high energy photons and measuring count rates, the measuring pipe being arranged to let the photons pass through the multiphase fluid mixture, determining (S 3 a ) a mass density (ρ ma — mix ) of the multiphase fluid mixture based on count rate measurements (S 2 a , S 2 b ) in a first (E 32 ) and second (E 81 ) energy window, the first (E 32 ) and second (E 81 ) energy windows being chosen so that the measurements in said energy windows are mainly sensitive to the fluid fractions, wherein the method further comprises the steps of: determining (S 4 ) an electronic density (ρ el — mix ) of the multiphase fluid mixture based on count rate measurements (S 2 c ) in a third energy window (E 356 ), the third energy window (E 356 ) being chosen so that the measurements in the third energy window (E 356 ) are substantially sensitive to the density of the constituting elements, and comparing (S 5 ) the electronic density (ρ el — mix ) to the mass density (ρ ma — mix ) of the multiphase fluid mixture, one of said densities being corrected with a factor depending on the atomic number (Z) and the mass number (A) of the multiphase fluid mixture prior to comparison, a difference between both densities indicating the quality of the mass density measurement of the multiphase fluid mixture.