Patent ID: 8743350

Claim:
A device for characterizing a two-phase flow in a channel comprising: a light source configured to illuminate the channel in which a fluid can flow in the form of a succession of droplets in another fluid; a means for detecting variations in illumination that are due to the transit of a droplet in the channel, said detection means comprising at least two photodiodes placed in series along the direction of the longitudinal axis of the channel so that a droplet in said succession of droplets flowing in the channel can cause the illumination detected by the first photodiode and then the illumination detected by the second photodiode to vary in succession, the photodiodes being connected in reverse so that the difference in current between the electrical currents output by each of the two photodiodes can be determined in order to obtain a differential current representative of the difference in the variation in illumination of the photodiodes; and a processing means for processing the data output by the detection means in order to deliver data characteristic of the two-phase flow.