Study on the Staggered Electrodes for 3D Electrical Capacitance Tomography | AIChE

Study on the Staggered Electrodes for 3D Electrical Capacitance Tomography

Authors 

Shen, J. - Presenter, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ye, M., Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Meng, S., Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yang, W., The University of Manchester
Liu, Z., Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) has received attention in
fluidized bed measurement for many years as a safe, economic, and non-intrusive
measurement technique1-3. ECT is based on the
measurement of the variation of capacitance of sensors composed of excitation
and detection electrodes, which are normally installed externally of the
fluidized bed vessels4. Compared with 2D ECT, 3D ECT
can provide information concerning flow pattern and bubbles directly from the
volumetric images of fluidized beds5.

Low image
quality, however, possesses a serve challenge for 3D ECT because of the
sensitivity of sensors on the one hand and the non-linear ill-posed nature of
image reconstruction on the other hand. For 3D ECT, the traditional rectangular
sensors have been commonly used, in which the measured signal of the
capacitance between electrodes in the layers far from each other would be
extremely week compared to that between electrodes in the adjacent layers,
causing low signal to noise ratio (SNR).

In this work, we
studied the ECT sensors with staggered electrodes, in particular the shape of
electrodes with regard to its effect on the image quality. Three different
shapes of electrodes, including the diamond, circular and hexagon shape, were
studied. We studied the quality of reconstructed images with both numerical
simulations and experiments for static objects, and analyzed quantitatively the
image errors and correlation coefficients. The results show that the precision
of the sensors with staggered electrodes are higher than that with rectangle
electrodes. In addition, image quality obtained by sensors with staggered
electrodes is superior than that by rectangle electrodes. This provides a
potential way to improve the image quality for 3D ECT. The application of the
staggered electrodes for 3D ECT in fluidized bed measurement was also
illustrated.

References

1.   Xie CG, Huang SM, Hoyle, BS, Thorn R, Lenn C, Snowden
D, Beck MS. Electrical capacitance tomography for flow image: system model for
development of image-reconstruction algorithms and design of primary sensors. Iee
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1992;139:89-98.

2.   Liu
S, Yan R, Wang H, Jiang F, Dong X. Applications of Electrical Capacitance
Tomography in Two Phase Flow Visualization. J Therm Sci. 2004;13:179-186.

3.   Wang
DW, Xu MY, Marashdeh Q, Straiton B, Tong A, Fan LS. Electrical Capacitance
Volume Tomography for Characterization of Gas-Solid Slugging Fluidization with
Geldart Group D Particles under High Temperatures. Ind Eng Chem Res. 2018;57:2687-2697.

4.   Yang
W. Design of electrical capacitance tomography sensors. Meas Sci Tech. 2010;21:042001.

5.   Wajman
R, Banasiak R, Mazurkiewicz L, Dyakowski T, Sankowski D. Spatial imaging with
3D capacitance measurements. Meas Sci Tech. 2006;17:2113-2118.

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