(147a) Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography for Process Imaging

This presentation will discuss the interactive phenomena of electric field with dielectric particles, leading to a recent development of the electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) for imaging the 3-D, real time flow field in particulates and multiphase systems. The systems under study include gas-solid and gas-liquid-solid fluidized beds. The geometrical variation in sensor design that enables the direct 3-D imaging and the Hopfield neural network for image inverse scheme that enables accurate reconstruction of the flow field highlight the uniqueness of this ECVT. The ECVT has been extended to imaging electrostatically charged particulate systems which are prevalent in industrial processes. Imaging the electrostatically charged particulate system is conducted by introducing the tomography charge compensation technique taking into consideration the electrostatic interaction between charged particles. The strategy for boundary treatment of the particle charges utilizing the tomography sensors is also illustrated.